Feelin’ Blue Layouts

Aja’s blocks for Feelin’ Blue arrived this week and they are gorgeous. I think she must have picked backgrounds, which truly inspired JZS and I to do our best. All of the blocks are gorgeous and together they have the right amount of color with right amount of blue. It is still monochromatic, but not boring. I read or took a class somewhere/sometime and recall the teacher/author saying that you had to add a little of the complementary color to a monochromatic quilt to make it interesting. I’ll have to look up from where I am remembering that comment.

Now my task is to layout the blocks.I have a couple of different ideas.

Feelin' Blue Layout 1
Feelin’ Blue Layout 1

The first one is nice, but unbalanced. Balance isn’t always what it is cracked up to be, but I do like balance.

Feelin' Blue Layout 2
Feelin’ Blue Layout 2

The second photo is my attempt at balance. I am leaning on going with this option. I still may play around with the layout some more just to see what I can come up with.

I am also still fiddling with the placement of the individual pieces. I stare at it in the morning for 45 minutes or so and move pieces around based on different subjective criteria. Two light blues in the middle piece are next to each other and thus make a big light blue blob. Too many oranges in one area. Etc.

Kansas City Star Blocks

Several years ago I bought a book from the Central Oklahoma Quilters Guild. It is volume three of a multi-volume set of Kansas City Star blocks. I looked through it recently and was reminded that the blocks make me drool with possibilities. Of course, the blocks would have to be redrafted for piecing. I have to say that the women who made some of the blocks when the blocks were first published were no sewing wimps. Many of the blocks have inset seams, irregular shapes, very thin triangles, etc. In that vein, I began thinking about the newspaper clipping of a Laura Wheeler block (newspaper clipping) and tried to remake it.

Snowball Wreath Pattern
Snowball Wreath Pattern

I didn’t use the templates given in the newspaper clipping, because I only had a picture of the newspaper clipping and not the original clipping. Also, the shapes of the pieces were crazy – at least for my level of skill in piecing! I am pleased with the way my block came out, even though I used different techniques (piecing combined with applique’ than the original block.

Snowball Wreath by Jaye
Snowball Wreath by Jaye

I would like to try again different ways, using different fabrics. I don’t think I got the spacing quite right. There is something not quite right about the newspaper clipping when compared with the actual fabric sample I made. I don’t think it is an easy task to look at a picture of a newspaper clipping and then create it in fabric, but it was a puzzle that I couldn’t put away.

I feel the same way about some of the Kansas City Star blocks. It would be a great project to try and remake them all. What a lot of blocks that would be. Some of them would be fine, but some would be quite challenging.

Sunset

I was sitting at my computer working when I looked up and saw the sunset out my window. The digital couldn’t deal with the screens on the window so this photo is taken from my front porch.

Sunset
Sunset

You get a great view of my neighbor’s house!

I love the colors. They make me want to sew. I am not sure what to sew, but I want to sew. I have been thinking about making two ATCs as thank you gifts, but can’t quite seem to get started. I thought of using some hand-dyed rickrack that I have that I used on the quilt What Comes Next. We’ll see. I am not sure what else I would do or how to start, so I guess it requires more thinking.

I had hoped to receive Aja’s bullseyes for Feelin’ Blue today, but they didn’t arrive. Perhaps tomorrow.

Another project off the ‘to do’ list!

I finished some napkins today that have been hanging around for several months. I bought the fabric in August 2004 at APNQ with JCN. I washed, cut up the fabric and did the first round of stitching. I even did the miserable part, which is turning the napkins inside out and carefully pressing them. I like two sided napkins as I can use more fabric and they don’t have to be washed as soon. Then they just hung around waiting for me to do the topstitching. I topstitched around one a few weeks ago, but didn’t get to the last three until today. Now they are finished and I can move on. These are the fabrics I used.

Feelin’ Blue

I am working on the third in a series of bullseye quilts. All of them have been group projects and this is no exception. The most recent two, Seeing Red and Feelin’ Blue, have been made with two friends, JZS and Aja. Feelin’ Blue is quite monochromatic in feel and may work well in our bedroom.

Feelin' Blue on the Design Wall
Feelin’ Blue on the Design Wall

This is a photo of how it looks on the design wall without Aja’s quarter blocks.