Help me pick fabrics!

[telophase]

So. When we lived in Tanzania (and when I got to go back fifteen years later) lo these many years ago we bought fabric. To do stuff with. Stuff that never actually got done and indeed was never even decided on.

There has finally been a decision made - a year or so back Mom saw the quilt I made from vom_marlowe's instructions, and decided that it would be the best way to finally use this fabric.

But, as the colors are sort of all over the place, I can't decide which ones to use.



So ... here is the fabric. Larger size for pic 1 here.



Larger size for pic 2 here.



The numbers are the same in each pic so we can refer to the different pieces by number. The un-numbered one next to #1, up on the headboard, is a piece of tie-dyed sheet Mom made way back when. :)

Pattern

I may do something a little bit more like the quilt Beach Glass from Quilts Made Modern: 10 Projects, Keys for Success with Color & Design, From the FunQuilts Studio than my previous one, but at any rate, it'll be as simple as I can make it, with a solid-color back and something with a faint tone-on-tone pattern to separate the piecing -- the faint pattern is to help disguise stains from cats, dropping crumbs, etc. :)

The back and the tone-on-tone pieces in between the fabric here will be dark -- Mom and I prefer that in general to light -- and most likely a black with a lighter pattern on it, much like the one I used for my quilt, as all the fabrics have black in the pattern.

Notes on the fabric

These are all cotton pieces, and some of them were kanga - a piece of cotton cloth used for wrapped garments, usually with a border around them and often with a motif in the center. Because of this border and motif, I can get 2-3 different patterns out of pieces of most of them.

Two of them have a "jina," or message, written on it in Swahili, which if I get translated and it fits, I may work into the quilt. (The other 2 or 3 kanga don't have them because they're cheap pieces made for the tourist trade.) Learn more about jina here. (The PDF linked from the Wikipedia page does not contain either of the jina on our kanga.)

I don't want to use huge pieces of the fabric, like the center motif on its own or something like that, because the printing isn't particularly straight. Mom had someone make #3 into a couple of pillows for her living room, and it just about drove the woman mad trying to line the patterns up. :)

Anyway ... so if you are trying to get several different patterns out of these to work together in one quilt, which pieces would you choose?

Comments

[dancewithoutyou]

4, 7, 8, 10

3, 4, 9

1, 2, 5

3, 5, 8

3, 4, 6, 7

1, 4, 6

[movingfinger]

1, 4, 9, 10, possibly with 6 also.

1, 2 together appear to be the same pattern in different colors---could be fun to piece a design together, but I am not sure that it would actually look good.

I'm not terribly good at this...

[telophase]

Thanks!

[telophase]

Yeah, 1 and 2 are pretty much the same. Possibly identical, but I haven't compared them directly. :)

I'm not terribly good at it, either, although I suspect that even if it does end up kind of ugly the sentimental value will iron out any problems. (Mom forbade me slicing them up to sew projects with all my child and teenage years -- I feel wibbly at the thought of slicing into them now!)

[jinian]

3, 4, and 5 go together most easily to me. I'd put 10 with them.

6, 9, 1, and 2 could make another set.

I don't actually like 7 or 8 so I have no inspiration regarding them, sorry. :)

[jinian]

I also endorse the previously posted 1, 4, 6 and 1, 4, 9, 10.

[telophase]

Thank you! :D

[lady_ganesh]

3,4,8, 9 (possibly 5)

Agree with 4, 7, 8, 10 and 3,4,9 (you could put 10 in that set too).

[telophase]

Thank you!