Last months we were looking for a challenge and I thought that we should do a brown one. The idea: someone finds some clearance fabric in a not-beautiful brown and we all take a piece and do something with it. I knew that some of the girls might struggle embracing the brown, but I also knew that by mixing it with some other fabrics, anything is possible. The guidelines are simple: make something quilted using the brown fabric - the fabric must be visible and recognizable. That's it.
Liz took on the job of finding the brown and her little girl picked one out from the clearance rack - and here it is. It's a pretty normal quilting fabric from my perspective. It's a bit on the gold side (hard to see in the photo), and this could make it harder to work with.
When the fabric was initially posted on Instagram, I went through my stash and pulled (most) of my browns. I realized that there are a lot of them - strange, since I don't like brown. But, I've been collecting fabric for a while, and I guess they've just accumulated somehow.
I did consider a totally brown color scheme, but decided that I'd rather mix it up and use the brown as an accent. Yesterday I went through the stash again looking for some feature fabrics with a bit of brown and other colors too. I found this cute little owl fabric and tried to pick out all of the other colors from it. It's an unusual combination for me, but maybe that's why I like it.
My daughter went for a butterfly print and came up with a second color scheme. (The periwinkle looks a bit odd, but there is that color in the butterfly print, it just didn't make it into the photo.) I confess, I am leaning toward this option because I am planning to make a cushion and these colors match the decor better.
Coincidentally, the Block Lotto this month is also using brown. I made three of this month's blocks but thought it was all too much brown for me, so I'm donating these to the pot.
