Day: November 10, 2008

Tidying Up My Mind

Yesterday was a gossamer or chiffon dress and drifting around Manderley kind of day. I mean that I drifted around the house from thing to project to computer to laundry not really accomplishing much as if I were a lady of leisure with servants to pick up after me.

The house is kind of suffering from my drifting, but I did accomplish a couple of things. First and foremost, I finished the Basket top. It was challenging to sew together. Somehow I couldn’t wrap my mind around a sensible way to put it together. I think the sashing tripped me up a bit. It is together now and nobody will know how much unsewing I did once it is quilted and hung.

It has now been named Cheerful #1: Baskets. TFQ thought up that name and I like it. It also implies that we will make more cheerful quilts together.

I need to make the back, which TFQ suggested be made out of a spring green fabric. I probably don’t have enough of one to make it, but I will collect a few spring greens and make it up. Then I will send it up to her and she will have Angie from the Quilting Loft quilt it. TFQ suggested it and I like the idea. I have a feeling quilt tops are going to pile up around here as my free time expands and we work through our financial issues.

Although I could have gone straight to working on a WIP such as the Spiderweb or the Tarts Come to Tea, I went, instead for a new project. The Eye Spy quilt for which TFQ, Julie and I have worked so hard cutting pieces has been on my mind lately. The offspring is probably too old now to appreciate the Eye Spy game, but I still wanted to put the quilt together, so I started.


My first impression of the piecing: FUN FUN FUN!!! I sewed a triangle on to a hexagon on opposite sides of the hexagon. I wanted to make sure I knew how this thing was going together, so I sewed the airplane to the yellow umbrella drink and it was really easy to put together. I couldn’t stop piecing last night and stayed up way too late. I just hope I have enough of the red triangles. I also have no idea what to do with the edges, but I will worry about that later. Right now Girls Just Want to Have Fun!

I have also been reading Ringle and Kerr’s Quiltmaker’s Color Workshop: The FunQuilts’ Guide to Understanding Color and Choosing Fabrics. I especially got into the text yesterday morning before I got up. I think my mind was in the mood for food, because when I went to the workroom a group of fabrics waiting to be ironed caught my attention. They were fanned out in a certain appealing way and I just had to take note.

I ironed them and cut the pieces I needed. These are the pieces I need for the FOTY 2008 quilt and they are currently on my design wall where I can admire them together. The blues are not completely matchy-matchy. There is something calming and/or restful about the color combination. I think I have good scale variations and may just have to do some project with just these fabrics. I am tempted to sew them together and keep them in a group in the FOTY quilt. We’ll see.

Finishing To Do List:

  1. Sleeve for Nosegay
  2. Back for Making Cheerful Quilts #1: Baskets
  3. Back for Crazy Quilt Test
  4. Handwork, binding and sleeve on Pamela Allen House quilt (no name yet)

So, I think I have tidied up my mind enough to get moving on some other issues – real issues – but I am glad that I was able to clear out these ideas. I would love to hear your thoughts!

After coming across what seemed to be the 4000th or so post…

So starts the post from Tartx about blogging without obligation. I have a personal goal to blog frequently, because I love to write and want to practice. I also adore making quilts and playing with fabric. Writing about those activities makes me happy and provides an enjoyable way to practice my writing skills. Still, I have enough MUST dos on my to do list (not leaving children at school to languish, feeding people, showering, etc), so I may not blog every day and sometimes I may not blog every week. I am committed to you, dear readers, and hope you will keep coming back for more. If you don’t want to manage a RSS reader or check back frequently, use http://www.page2rss.com to create an RSS feed for this blog.

Thanks for reading!

clipped from www.tartx.com

blogging without obligation

After coming across what seemed to be the 4000th or so post on someone’s blog starting with “I’m sorry I haven’t posted in awhile.” I decided it is time to rethink what makes a good blog and the expectations that have come to be part of it. I am thinking that no one should utter those words again . . .and with that thought I give you Blogging Without Obligation.

blog it

Book Review: Quiltmaker’s Color Workshop

I have also been reading Ringle and Kerr’s Quiltmaker’s Color Workshop: The FunQuilts’ Guide to Understanding Color and Choosing Fabrics. I especially got into the text yesterday morning before I got up. I haven’t completely finished the book, but here is my review, such that it is. When I update it, it will be updated here.

Quiltmaker's Color Workshop: The FunQuilts' Guide to Understanding Color and Choosing Fabrics Quiltmaker’s Color Workshop: The FunQuilts’ Guide to Understanding Color and Choosing Fabrics by Weeks Ringle

 

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book gives quiltmakers points and tools for selecting colors. It does not steer you towards the accepted methods of selecting colors, such as the ‘focus fabric’ method. Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr bring their experience from outside the quilt world to quiltmakers by introducing techniques and methods that quiltmakers are not normally taught. Lstening to instrumental music and identifying the colors the reader sees in it as well as trying to replicate textures in color are two methods discussed. There numerous other suggestions by the authors for methods of selecting a unique palette.

Selecting fabrics is just the start, however.

One of the best things about this book is the definitions. They have definitions of hue and value and color that actually make sense; definitions that the average reader can take away and use.

After the definitions section come the exercises. These exercises are made up of three parts: color variations, individual exercises and group exercises. The pages where Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr display color variations in quilt format gives the reader a practical sense of the use of color. Part of this exercise shows the proportion of color used in a quilt and what happens to the overall look of the quilt when colors are added and removed.

I haven’t done any of the individual exercises, but they are quite accessible and one of them (listing all the colors I can think of and then marking my favorites) is quite tempting.

The group exercises, which took me awhile to notice, make me think of a class where, over the course of a period of time, a group could explore color together.

The three parts of this book made me look at colors in a new way this morning after reading several sections.

As with all quilt books, there are projects and patterns. These don’t annoy me as much as patterns in other books, because the authors discuss their Big Idea in the course of the pattern.

This is a book that I would encourage people to read and keep near by for easy and frequent referral.

View all my reviews.