Brown is a new favorite color of mine. Blue has always been at the top of the list for me, but in recent years, I’ve come to love brown. Maybe there is a reason.
This photo is one I made a few years ago to use on the invitations to my family reunion. Pictured are a platter and pitcher from the Tea Leaf dinnerware which was my grandmother’s pattern. On the evening of Ollie Jane’s wedding in 1890, her mother hosted a supper for family. She served the meal on those dishes and gave them as a gift to the bride and groom. These two pieces in the photo were later purchases, but I do have one plate left that was on Ollie Jane’s table that night. The large pitcher was one she used and I still use it, too.
Also in the photo is a piece of brown and white checked fabric. I’ve been accused of “adding a little brown check” when a quilt needs a spark of something different (as in GBI Blues), or when I don’t know what else to use (as in Seven Black Birds). [Photos of those two quilts are in the gallery.] I included that fabric in this photo because it looks like the apron I remember Ollie Jane wearing a lot during the last years of her life.
When I printed the photo of Bunk Bates for the Flag Bearer quilt I wrote about yesterday, I printed the above photo on linen as well. In thinking about a composition using that photograph, I decided to pour some dye in a bucket and dip some things. Here you see them drying.
Stay tuned for the final result, but suffice it to say, I’m having a lot of fun! I ordered some indigo dye today; I can’t wait to play with that. Oh, I like blue and brown together, too.
You can read more about Ollie Jane’s wedding and her quilts here. And more about her influence on my quiltmaking here.
Oh, I agree…brown is so luxurious (that spelling does not look right???)!