Awww, thanks Margo!

Check out Ritzy's profile photos, especially her Bouquets for a New Day BOM! She is great with pure colors!

[url]community/my-profile/ritzy[/url]

I was going to suggest a deep midnight blue to contrast with the brights. I like to make quilts using intense "bright" colors and have normally used white. But I recently saw a quilt using the midnight blue and fell in love with that combination.

In the lost regions of my mind... I have to separate brights from batiks and even hand dyes. To me the batiks and hand dyes have a softer muted look, I tend to pair them with either hand dyes or batiks in light fabrics... ecrue / creams tend to blend well.

Having worked several blocks with the brights I found I liked the brightest white and the blackest blacks to work best to acheive the looks I am going for this upcoming project.

I have been experimenting and since this is the Memorial Weekend and most quilt shops are closed, I raided my stash of Kona Cottons to make some of my experimental blocks. I am not sure if the experiments would be the same using other styles/types of background fabrics. I am making BRAVE NEW WORLD and 1000 Pyramid blocks using the brights and various backgrounds. I am not even sewing them together but rather laying them on the design wall. I found MIDNIGHT/ NAVY BLUE, A REALLY PURE, TRUE RED and a dark HUNTER/ FOREST green to give an interesting look to the blocks. Not sure if I would like it for a whole quilt but it is fun experimenting.


.

With all those bright brights, I wouldn't want to dilute the colors by pairing them with off-whites or grays, etc. Clean, pure white would be my choice. I made a red and black quilt, using beiges, tans, etc. as background and it looks totally different than one I've made using a white background. Hard to explain how "the look" differs, but it just doesn't sparkle -- and that's what I think you're looking for!
Brita

i used one as back ground the same color but the lightest that i can find as a back ground for very very very bright colors, it made it very nice results!

I prefer white, but my quilting group made a raffle quilt using bright batkis, and we used a cream background material and it was pretty. Note that this years pieced BOM is brights with a white background - saw it in Houston and it is beautiful. I'm making it using white also. Mary

I have used a very dark hunter green with brights in the past and liked the result.

Lorchen

my inclination is white -

Here's a very informative blog on choosing colors that I'm sure you will find helpful
http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransson/2009/03/quilt-along-part-2-color-basics-and-color-schemes.html

color and value ... What pairs best with brights
What color as a background would you suggest to put with REALLLY BRIGHT COLORS... REDDEST REDS, BLUEST BLUES, CARIBBEAN SHADES...lime, lemon, turquiose etc. Any saturated intense true color. I have in the past teamed it with black but am unsure if I should team it with pure white or can I use an off white, cream, ecrue etc.

Can the same brigts be used with batiks? My daughter feels the batiks are greyed / muddied and tone down the brights making them dull.

Does fabric style ( Retro, CW, Moda, thimbleberries, 30s, brights, etc) dictate the type of fabric that can be paired as background?

If anyone has an opionion please let me know.


.