Just a quick visual lesson in the need for negative space in quilts. Somewhere down the line, I’ll be making a quilt with lovely, vibrant, in-your-face reds from the amazing Kaffe Fassett.
When viewed side by side, they’re an overwhelming chaos of color and pattern. Maybe too much of a good thing.
But give them a little space, your eye can rest a bit and each one becomes an individual piece of art.
Aaah, much better! These pieces are just laying on a bit of brown fabric, but when it comes time to piece the quilt I think I’ll use a deep gray and space them a little further apart. (And more evenly.)
CoopCrafts 
oo i love the brown too…make its so rich..
I like it on the brown too, Amanda! But I kind of have someone in mind for this quilt, and the gray would work really well for them. I think if I stick with a dark coal gray, the bright colors will still seem to pop off the background like that. (At least, that’s my hope!)
That is a helpful illustration! I struggle with having a background color in a block and where to put it–
Hi, knitnkwilt! If I’d been thinking I might have shown it against a light and a dark background, because that would make such a difference in the feeling of depth …