Color Class Lesson 3- Complementary

Time to show you my next project for my Color Class.

Our December class took place the day after Christmas and I wasn't able to attend.

December's assignment was direct complements and I chose red & green.

The biggest challenge I am facing each month is deciding what to do. As I had a great number of both red and green, about 20 of each (but in small quantities), I settled on trying to make a Bargello.

I have never made one nor seen a Bargello made before, so I had to look up some basic construction rules before getting started.

I have to say, the construction is cool, using tubes and setting the layout. Of course, because all of my tubes were identical, I wasn't able to do any fancy pattern, but that's okay. I did vary the strip widths and just put everything together rather randomly.

In order to use the 40 fabrics, the project came out much bigger than I had planned, but now I suppose I can hang it up and fill some of the empty wall space I still have here! The finished project measures 48"wide by 28"tall.

I chose to use silks to make the borders from, a lovely rich red and a green, which when you look at the weft and weave, is actually red and green woven together. It reads as a rich, dark green, and suits my piece just beautifully.

I made a wooden frame for it from 1x2 pine strips I got at the lumber store. I actually got the wood cut and put together all square! But don't be too impressed yet...

You know that saying "measure twice, cut once"? Well, I should have remembered that BEFORE I made the frame, because once my great frame was done, I discovered that my quilt was too short!

So my only option was to head back to the fabric store and get some more of the border fabric, and I made the borders bigger and then was able to staple-gun it to the frame. It took some doing to get it straight too, but overall I think it turned out well.

When I took it to the January class yesterday, everyone was in agreement that displaying it horizontally was much more pleasing to the eye, and that I should hang it this way:

Heather said looking at it this way, it starts with a BANG! and finishes with a whimper, which is what we want. I need to write that down so I don't forget for future projects. Now to figure out where to put it.