Directional fabrics and show quilts

[BarbaraB]

Good morning everyone, I hope someone can answer this question.

I'm piecing the blocks for a quilt and some of the fabrics are directional...all the fabric is floral. When sewing the blocks, I'm making sure that the fabrics are going the right way. I'm tentatively planning to enter this in next year's quilt competition at the county fair.

The question is.....when I'm arranging the layout for the blocks, does it matter if the directional fabrics are oriented horizontally instead of vertically?

Below is one of the blocks. The four patch units are more purple than what the picture shows.

Hope someone can help. Thanks.

IMG_0445.jpg

[Claire Hallman]

I am not a quilt judge but it seems to me that if this is going to be a show quilt that the leaves and flowers should grow up. It would be just my luck that the show people would hang the quilt upside down.😁 True story.🙄

[oldmanquilts]

Hard to hang upside down if you put the sleeve on the right end to begin with.

[Claire Hallman]

This was a guild show and no sleeves were used. They were hung using curtain clip type rings.

[nativetexan]

since you stress that it is directional, then all should face the same way. Good luck!

[Bubby]

I agree that the direction is important. In competition you want to eliminate every possible thing that could be something that a judge wouldn’t like. We all have pet peeves even if they aren’t realistic.

[Dove]

It looks to me like the direction would look just fine if they were going horizontally. Tree branches grow that way.

[oldmanquilts]

Arrange the fabric so it appears how nature meant it to look. I might question you choice of floral fabric, or maybe how it's cut, but if you look at the lower left of the photo, you'll see some leaves that are cut off in a seam. That was the first thing my eye was drawn to. It will with the judges as well. If it "irks" them, which it will, it's an instant "meh" and they won't consider the whole picture, or they will pick it apart.

Big print fabrics are a challenge no matter what.

[jjkaiser]

I see what you mean about some leaves being chopped off. But if you look at the other sections of the quilt there is no way to avoid this since the plants are all overlapping each other or really close together.

[jjkaiser]

I love that botanical print and I think all the leaves should be facing the same direction. I hope it is just the color on my computer but the purple in your 4 patches look way too dark for those prints. I would not mention this except that you said you might enter it. You don't want the color of your 4 patches to overpower the rest. Hope I did not hurt your feelings.

[sydneybean]

I also think maybe white wasn't the best choice as the background on the focal fabric seems to be in cream or ecru. It could be just in the photo tho. The background fabric is really pretty