Getting Scrappy with Broken River Quilts

One of my tribies (definition - a person belong to and of the tribe that gets you through the joys and learnings of life), Jen, made a complex quilt pattern designed for scraps and using remnant fabrics. I have some commercial fabrics stuffed into a dark recess of a linen cupboard, and after giving my stash of commercial fabrics away twice in 40 years, the few I've inherited or kept might work well in this context. First, buy the pattern. I don't do commercial patterns. I feel my textile work becomes processy, not artsy, and certainly unoriginal using someone else's pattern. Jen had fussy cut every single piece for every single block - perhaps1500 individual pieces - to make her version from 1950's era fabrics.  It looks beyond fabulous. On the other hand, I had a small container of commercials connected only through being in the same container. 

I committed to only using those fabrics. Instead of mindless piecing, I found the evenings spent putting this puzzle together a challenge. It's a very clever design on multiple levels. Four x 18" square finished blocks, each made four times and arranged into a king size coverlet. Solving the challenges of a limited range, generally small prints, few opportunities for contrast and a distinct imbalance favouring the darker side required more than one marguerita. Swapping in, swapping out. Pivoting when two fabrics didn't make any sense. Lessening the need to control the outcome. Relying on the repetition and allowing the amorphous whole speak louder than the individual pieces of cloth.  

It was finished. I felt triumphant. It was in packing away the leftover fabrics and those I didn't get to use that I found the second bag of commercials.