Bella Inverta: Reversing Values

I made this quilt as part of my teaching demo at the International Quilt Festival in Chicago in June. It began with a Moda Charm Pack called Soho Chic. The top fabric was the one in the upper right hand corner of the quilt. I fell in love with the chartreuse, eggplant, teal and dark pink. When I started choosing the 25 squares for the quilt I picked all the light ones and really disliked what was happening. Then I realized there were "darks" and :lights" but no "mediums" which was a lesson in VALUE! I usually pick the lights and mediums for the pieced background and use a dark coordinating batik for the applique. I set those light prints aside for the binding and grabbed the rich colored dark squares that I loved from the beginning. But then what do I use for the applique so it is visible? I reversed it and went with a light color to get optimum CONTRAST! I purchased a piece to cream batik and it reminds me of a photo negative. I name my quilt series Bella (good in Italian) ... Negative seemed, well, negative so I tried the word reverse in Italian and it was "inverto" which I switched to the female "inverta" hence the name of the quilt.

 This photo shows some of the many trims, beads, baubles and flowers I had auditioned as embellishments for this quilt. These are the rejects. I chose some lime green rhinestones for the background, some hot pink glitter nail polish for the mouth, hot pink loose glitter on the eyelid and instead of my usual white reflection dot on the eye I "reversed" with a dark brownish purple.  Then I had some fun jewel tone Christmas garland I took apart and hand sewed the sequins to the outside of the binding for some bling. These large sequins remind me of the winter hats we used to wear in the winter as children! (a baby boomer moment!)

 This is one on the original style Bella quilts with a colorful background with black applique.  Bella Chroma.

And this quilt called Bella Rosa (pink in Italian.) This monochromatic color scheme is a great way to have a VALUE study.

This quilt is now a pattern and is available on my website www.laurieceesay.com