Pantone Background

 

I decided to get a bit more of the Pantone Project background fabric to use in-between all the blocks for some "negative space." Friend Jaye found some left at Fat Quarter shop and when it arrived here I compared it to the fabric we've been using on our blocks. And...I think it's a different color.

The new fabric is in the front, and it has a very different hand, even without pre-washing. I thought maybe washing it might fix things up. Sometimes fabrics have chemical brighteners or surface treatments that can alter the appearance or feel of the fabric.

Yeah, that's a really different color, the *official* Pantone Project fabric is on the bottom. One is slightly grey and one is white. The fabric's hand feels a bit closer to the original though. I checked on the fabric manufacturer website and it was never offered in a grey with the white squares. There was a grey but it was much darker and had grey squares. 

I looked more closely at the selvedges and the name and product number do match, but the selvedges themselves are quite different. The new one has the blue line woven in along the edge and the printing of the product information is much lower down on the selvedge. The *original* that we used (and was bought at a local quilt shop) is on the left is still a bit rougher feeling and it sheds a whole lot of long threads on the cut edge. Not a quality fabric I kept thinking as I used it throughout this project. 

The version that I bought from Fat Quarter Shop has a nicer hand and is not shedding threads on the cut edge in the same way at all. Weird, huh? I'm guessing that the manufacturer must have switched which base fabric they were using during production at some point? I remember hearing ages ago that commercial fabric production switches from cheaper to more expensive base fabrics depending on where the end-product fabric was getting sold. So, the same pattern would be produced for different markets, higher-end quilt shop market vs. Walmart or Jo-Anns.  No idea if that's still true or not.

Anyways, I don't know if I can use this new fabric in my Pantone Project quilt or not. My DS said I should dye it slightly grey, but I know that I am not that good of a dyer to match that up or maybe make the situation worse. I think I'll try pinning it up and putting some of the Pantone Project blocks on it to see if I can notice the difference when it's mixed in with colors.

The Smoothest Grey

As I talked about last month, I've been on the hunt for the correct grey to use to finish my City Sampler quilt top. After my in-person search of the two fabric stores in Santa Cruz turned up nothing, I bought these online.  Unfortunately, I found that none of these were even close. I really thought Dove was going to be it. It really truly doesn't work to color match on your computer screen. Grey is one of those really contextual colors, you just don't see how green or purple or yellow it is until it's next to something else.

These are the Ruby+Bee solids for the MQG challenge. That raincloud grey color is a nice grey, but also not it.

I had a re-check post-op appointment last week so I headed over to Golden State Quilting, and bought up the last of the bolt of the Painter's Palette in the color: Mist. This is an in the car picture to check that my in the store eyeballing was right, the sample has a white index card behind it.

But here in a sunny window, without the white index card, I really think this might be the match for me. 

It's the mist, I think this is the one! I think I'll cut a couple strips after I was it and see how it matches on the almost done quilt top. Fingers crossed...🤞🤞🤞