ColorPlay: deYoung Flowers

ColorPlay: DeYoung Flower - original
ColorPlay: DeYoung Flower – original

I took a few photos at a special exhibit held at the deYoung in late March.

I can’t remember the name of the exhibit. They do it every year and it is up for a very short time. Someone chooses artworks and matches them up with floral designers who create a floral arrangement that matches, reflects, goes with – or something – the artworks. I had a hard time seeing how the floral designs went with the artwork. You never know what the artist sees. I find that with my own work.

I have many pictures from the show, but the pink in this one intrigued me. I really created a lot of palettes and could have created more. There is a lot of scope for color in that arrangements. I had to stop because I knew you wouldn’t read about 50 palettes. I also didn’t want to write that much.

ColorPlay: DeYoung Flowers-default
ColorPlay: DeYoung Flowers-default

The first palette, as usual is the default palette. This one is seriously neutral and somewhat depressing considering the vibrant colors in the bouquet. I noticed that the circles tend to be placed towards the edges.

ColorPlay: DeYoung Flowers n.1
ColorPlay: DeYoung Flowers n.1

I made sure my first palette included some brights, or at least cheerful solids. I kept in some of the neutral feel as I was trying to show progression. I don’t like that Kona Cotton Latte much. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

I have up on progression when making my first monochromatic palette, the pink. I was able to make two (yes, TWO) monochromatic palettes this time: a blue and a pink. I went for broke since that Kona Latte fabric really bugged me.

ColorPlay: DeYoung Flowers n.3
ColorPlay: DeYoung Flowers n.3

I went back to progression when I made palette n.3. I thought blue would look great with pink, so I kept some of the pinks and added some blues. I put more blues in as I didn’t want to make the palette exactly equal. I probably couldn’t have done another one that had more pinks than blues, too.

This one led to the monochromatic blue palette pictured above.

ColorPlay: DeYoung Flowers n.5
ColorPlay: DeYoung Flowers n.5

I tried to get away from my default blues and do something different. I think the anchor fabric in this palette is the Kona Cardinal. I didn’t completely succeed with this effort, because the Wasabi and Butterscotch are very similar. I am not sure the arrangement has need of that much of those tones.

ColorPlay: DeYoung Flowers n.6
ColorPlay: DeYoung Flowers n.6

I wanted to improve on the palette above, so I made minor adjustments. Chestnut Palm and Spice are not favorites. This is not my kind of palette.

ColorPlay: DeYoung Flowers n.7
ColorPlay: DeYoung Flowers n.7

I tried to improve the palette above again. I think I did a better job. The Grass Green and Deep Rose are much better.

ColorPlay: DeYoung Flowers n.8
ColorPlay: DeYoung Flowers n.8

I think n.8 is the best iteration of the last few. The palette reflects my personality. The pink brings out the best in the Sunflower. I think Taupe is a supporting actor and I wouldn’t put a lot of that in a quilt.

You may see other arrangements from this show in the future.

Color My Quilt: Gerre

Color My Quilt: Gerre's shard
Color My Quilt: Gerre’s shard

Gerre brought her blocks to the meeting last month and laid them out. I talked about this process earlier in the week (better late than never!). During that process, I realized that my shard was not among the ones she brought. I looked up all the Color My Quilt posts and don’t think I ever made her a piece. I was really sad about that, so I got busy.

This one isn’t as long as I thought it would be and is more buttoned up than the other shards, but I hope she will be able to use it.

Octagon 9 Patch Returns

Octagon 9 Patch - ready for binding
Octagon 9 Patch – ready for binding

It was back in May that I finished preparing the Octagon 9 Patch for quilting and July when I took it to Colleen. The child has returned and the quilting looks fabulous. There is something about not seeing a quilt for awhile that makes it that much nicer. Also, being almost finished is wonderful, too.

Sadly, Colleen hurt her hand and she didn’t get to the Stepping Stones before she did it. I don’t know how badly, but I know she isn’t quilting for awhile. Hopefully, not too long. I am continuing to sew! (as you probably noticed)

Color My Quilt: Marty

Color My Quilt: Marty (Sept. 2018)
Color My Quilt: Marty (Sept. 2018)

Marty tried to torture me this month with her request.

Brown.

Yep. Brown.

I couldn’t believe it, but it was true. Fortunately, I didn’t have go to the indignity of beige or baby poop brown. I had a chocolate fabric with the most fabulous lime, turquoise and orange dots. Haha!

The shard is a little bit of an odd shape, but that is ok. Marty will just have to deal. I hope she likes it.

Color My Quilt: Marty - Brown made fabric
Color My Quilt: Marty – Brown made fabric

I had made some fabric using browns sometime ago. I can’t remember for what reason, so I just decided to toss that into the pile for Marty as well. Despite my best intentions, I am not going to make a journal cover from browns. I might have been thinking of making another Henry, but that can wait. I want to make a white one first.

Color My Quilt: Gerre’s Shards

Last month, Gerre brought her shards to we could all look at them. Gerre has left her handbag at home, so didn’t have her phone and couldn’t take photos. I volunteered and texted her photos as I took them. There are a lot of photos!

Being the opinionated ladies that we are, we all had opinions about placement. It was kind of fun to work with other people moving shards around. I think Gerre was kind of excited, too, as it gave her ideas about placement.

I had issues with the plum (see upper part of first photo, left). I thought the plum should be dispersed throughout the quilt.

We also tried to move the white around so it wasn’t all clustered in one place (see bottom two rows).

There was advice about putting the pieces together into chunks and cutting pieces up. I think it got people excited about layout.

New Pet Bed

Red Peacock Pet Bed
Red Peacock Pet Bed

I have plans to cut up scraps with my Accuquilt Go! on Monday. I figured that I had to have somewhere to put all the schnibbles, so I made a pet bed.

In the past, I have put the schnibbles into the bag I keep clipped to the side of my cutting table. It is, however, nearly full, and why take that interim step? I will probably have enough scraps after my Go! session to fill the whole pet bed. Yay! More comfy pets.

Aqua-Red Sampler Top Finished

Aqua-Red Sampler Top finished
Aqua-Red Sampler Top finished

I worked hard last week on the Aqua-Red Sampler and got the top and back finished. WHEW! I didn’t fight with it as much as I had over the past month, but it wasn’t all peaches and roses either.

I probably would have made the white border thinner, if I had it to do other again, but I am not ripping it out. I think it works.

I ended up choosing the solid border, mostly because I didn’t have enough of the daisy fabric and I didn’t want to fiddle and fight to make it fit. I am pleased with it.

ColorPlay: Tool Tote

ColorPlay: Tool Tote
ColorPlay: Tool Tote

I really like the Philip Jacobs fabric in the Tool Tote and decided to do a ColorPlay using one of the photos from the post.

ColorPlay: Tool Tote -default
ColorPlay: Tool Tote -default

Again, the default is not all neutral. There are quite a number of violets.

ColorPlay: Tool Tote -n.1
ColorPlay: Tool Tote -n.1

This palette provides another group of violets with some neutrals included. It is kind of dark palette, but the Honeysuckle makes it slightly more cheerful.

ColorPlay: Tool Tote -n.2
ColorPlay: Tool Tote -n.2

I am not sure how different n.2 is from the two above. I like the Lupine in the palette above.

ColorPlay: Tool Tote -n.3
ColorPlay: Tool Tote -n.3

I couldn’t go without a neutral palette. I still got a lavender.

ColorPlay: Tool Tote -n.4
ColorPlay: Tool Tote -n.4

I really tried to make this one green. I think the greens look uglier in the palette than they do in the fabric. Granted there isn’t much green in the fabric.

ColorPlay: Tool Tote -n.5
ColorPlay: Tool Tote -n.5

Different grouping of colors, but the same colors as the first couple of palettes.

Surprisingly, this group of fabric offered up fewer opportunities for interesting palettes than I would have expected.

 

Grandma’s Tea Towels

Mary C's Embroidered Tea Towel Quilt
Mary C’s Embroidered Tea Towel Quilt

The other day, at Sew Day, I saw Mary’s GREAT quilt and it made me think of some of the tea towels and such that I have that are nicely embroidered.

Yes, we had the Boxy Bag class, but there was plenty of time to work on other projects. I started cutting out the All Rolled Up Tote, as mentioned.

Parakeet Embroidery
Parakeet Embroidery

 

 

Mary C, a great member of the group, brought a quilt she had made with embroidered tea towels. I have tea towels, pillowcases and a few other things from the matriarchal side of the family. I talked about the parakeet dresser scarf (or similar) in a previous post.

Mary said that she used a jelly roll of 1930s fabrics. I really like the fabrics she chose and think they are a little different than the Aunt Grace style of 1930s fabrics.

This is the first quilt that I have really liked that uses tea towels. She backed the embroideries with ShapeFlex after trimming them. We advised her to just quilt around the embroidery designs and not over them.

Aqua-Red Sampler Top Nearing Completion

Aqua-Red Sampler Quilt border audition
Aqua-Red Sampler Quilt border audition

I worked hard on the Aqua-Red Sampler quilt over the weekend. It was great to have a nice long weekend. I made a lot of progress and will be glad to get this quilt out of my hair.

You will notice that I rearranged the blocks since my last layout. I also did not include the Cathedral Window block. It was just too thick. I have another test block from this quilt and I think I will make a pillow from the two of them.

I made a new block and needed to rearrange the blocks because of the colors. I didn’t want all the big red dots and daisy fabrics lumped together in one area. This quilt has been one problem after another and I hope that the borders will cut me some slack.

I found a bright white (Pure Elements Snow, which is different from Kona Snow) that picked up and highlighted the other bright whites in the blocks. I tried not to include too much cream where possible. I’m not sure about the width of that white border (2.5 inches). I may rip it off and make it smaller. That is not my first choice.

I thought the daisy fabric would be exciting, but I would have to struggle with making sure I used every scrap if I can’t find the rest of the stash of it that I know I have somewhere. The solid turquoise would be a  solid choice. By that I mean that it would work, it would probably hold in all that is going on in the quilt.

 

All Rolled Up Tote Begins

All Rolled Up Tote cut
All Rolled Up Tote cut

I started cutting for the All Rolled Up Tote Saturday at Sew Day in between the Boxy Bag class. This one of the projects will not necessarily match my other Crafty Gemini projects even though that was the original intention. I wanted to use some text fabrics, so I veered away from my original idea.

This is sort of the like the Sew Together Bags. I haven’t, however, seen one in person, so I can’t really tell the differences. I do know that it is much bigger than the Sew Together Bag. One website says that the finished size is 15″L x 9″W x 6″T. 6 inches, which is as tall as my square ruler. This will be a large bag. Between this and the Tool Tote, I am not sure how my Go/travel bag is going to change.

There are about 2,000 pieces in this pattern and I only got about 653 cut out. I am happy that I got most of the fabric pieces cut out. What I have left to cut is batting, fusible interfacing and vinyl. Vanessa at Crafty Gemini loves her clear vinyl!

I didn’t print out all of the directions – just the cutting instructions, because I didn’t want to waste ink. I don’t know when I will sew on it, but since I have more cutting to do, it might be some time.

Boxy Bag Class

Boxy Bag - closed
Boxy Bag – closed

I took a class on Saturday at Sew Day. We don’t usually have classes during Sew Day, but we had this one. People were still allowed to come to Sew Day if they weren’t taking the class. They could listen in, but I didn’t see any of them trying to horn in on the class. We just aren’t that kind of group.

I did some of the home work during the week. I pulled the two fabrics off my ironing board and the pattern called for pieces almost the size of the fat quarters. This means I won’t have slivers of them in my FOTY 2018 quilt. 🙁 C’est la vie!

Boxy Bag - open
Boxy Bag – open

Lynette taught the class and she is a great teacher. Here handouts were stellar. Her teaching was really clear. The project wasn’t complicated, but a little tricky in places. She did a great job explaining  the tricky parts even when two sets of students diverged when a group went and had lunch while the other group kept working.

I like the way this project came out. It is fully lined and very nicely finished. I immediately wanted to make a bunch of them. I think I’ll finish the aprons first.

26 Projects, Once Again

I am making progress. It’s frustratingly slow. At least I am making some kind of progress.

Finished 2018 Quilt Projects

I am still at five quilts in 8 months. I know that Colleen has three, but I would still really like to have more off my UFO list. They don’t magically get done. I know the key is not to add anymore to my UFO list.

Finished 2018 Non-Quilt Projects

Doing Good

In Process
The ‘In Process’ is used to denote projects on which I am actively working or pretending to stitch. I try not to put away projects, because that will ensure I never work on them

  • Aqua-Red Sampler –This is on the design wall. I finished the last block, then decided it wouldn’t work. I have been fighting to get this quilt together, but I hope when you read this, it will be close to finished.
  • Pies and Points from 2016 Victoria Findlay Wolfe class. Julie and I had a playdate towards the beginning of April. I brought this piece with me so I could cut more elements (Julie has a Sizzix). I am more excited about this piece now. I thought I had done more, but I couldn’t find more than 2.5 sewn together pieces.
  • English Paper Piecing Project– half hexies – I have added about five stars. I also found some grey (did I buy it for this project or on spec?) that will be perfect for the border. Remember last time when I said I couldn’t find the diamond papers? I gave up and bought more. I haven’t actuallly made a border yet, but I have all of the supplies. I bought a template to go with the diamond papers. Joann at Paper Pieces was very helpful.

Still WIPs
I still have WIPs. Who doesn’t, after all? A project in the ‘UFO’ category means I am stalled. A nicer way of saying UFO is a WIP. The list is a lot shorter and the projects are newer, for the most part.

  1. City Samplerblocks all made. The long term goal is to sash the blocks and put the top together. In the meantime, due to some seam allowance issues, some of the blocks are smaller than others, so I will have to adjust them in some way – either ripping and resewing, adding a piece or two to the block, or with sashing. I edfinish measuring all of the blocks so I can move on. My new sticking point is that I just need to deal with the problems. Sigh.
  2. FOTY 2017 – pieces cut. Need to layout and start piecing. No new progress.
  3. Handbag Sampler – this is a project about which I had forgotten. The blocks were teaching samples when I taught a sampler class the time before I started writing the quilt class sampler tutorials. I found one block recently, but otherwise I actually don’t know exactly where the blocks are hiding. I have an idea and will crawl up in the far reaches of my fabric closet soon and see if I can find them. I haven’t even found a picture of all the blocks.
  4. Lobster – I still have more stitching to do and then I need to quilt it.
  5. Pointillist Palette #4: Fourth is a series of 6 quilts; needs tiny square patches sewn together. No progress.
  6. Self Portrait: started in 2006 at a class at Quilting Adventures in Richmond, Virginia. I am still stalled on this again. As my oldest (I am pretty sure) UFO, I put it on my blog and out into the Twitterverse and Diane suggested that I not consider this as a self portrait. I think that strategy is a great idea. I am now trying to think of a new persona for her.
  7. Serendipity Lady Quilt: no new progress.
  8. Under the Sea: class project; like the design and am happier with the colors. I worked on it a couple of nights during Craft Night and am nearing the end of the stitching.
  9. Black and Red quilt – This came about because of two other projects. I made a whole bunch of bias tape as part of my failed attempt at doing the Mighty Lucky Club a few years ago. Another part of the inspiration came from my class with Tina of Little Blue Cottage fame. This was going to be for a nephew, but I think it will be for one of my SILs and BILs. I have rectangles cut and some bias tape ready. My next step is to sew the bias tape to the rectangles like pickup sticks. I don’t have any photos of this, so you’ll have to trust me.

Small Projects in Process

Most of my progress involves thinking or just cutting.

  • All Rolled Up Tote – part of Crafty Gemini Organizer Club. I started cutting out the pieces yesterday at Sew Day. I made some progress, though I didn’t get it all cut out.
  • White on black dots cell phone wallet – need to find the fabric and cut out the pieces
  • Solid black cell phone wallet – need to find the fabric and cut out the pieces
  • Chubby Charmer with Good Fortune charm pack – gift
  • 4-Zip Organizer – part of Crafty Gemini Organizer Club. It is on my list, but I haven’t actually started
  • Retreat Organizer – another project from the Crafty Gemini Organizer Club, also on my list, but not yet started
  • Ultimate Project Organizer – another project from the Crafty Gemini Organizer Club, also on my list, but not yet started

Ready for Quilting

  • None at this time.

In Quilting Process

  • BAMaQG Color Round Robin– I took this to Colleen on my way to Sisters in July.
  • Octagon 9 Patch: I took this to Colleen on my way to Sisters in July.
  • Stepping Stones #2 – I took this to Colleen on my way to Sisters in July.
  • BAMaQG IRR –The sandwich has been basted. I machine quilted a couple of lines to stabilize it. I am making slow progress on hand quilting it using Big Stitch.
  • Thanksgiving tablemat – I have the correct feet and just need to get busy.
  • Theoretically, the Tarts Come to Tea is in the quilting process, though I haven’t worked on it in a while. See above.

Binding

  • nothing at the moment

Hunting and Gathering

  • 30 Something: I continue to cut 1.5 inch squares. I am pretty sure I have the 800 I need, but I am not ready to sew them together yet, so whenever I have a chance to cut more I cut more. It will give me choice when the time comes. I’ll have to think up a new name for this quilt, too. My next step is to figure out if I need to cut other sizes of squares and switch from cutting 1.5 inch squares to cutting the new size.
  • Blue Gradation Quilt: cutting 2.5 inch x 4.5 inch blue rectangles. It has to end sometime. I wasn’t sure I was ready to put this together, but I think I might be. I might do a couple of gradation quilts in a row just to get the practice.
  • Blue Lemonade: cutting blue, green, purple 2 inch squares. I used a lot of these squares for En Provence, so I am slowly cutting more.
  • FOTY 2018: I have started cutting 2.5 inch squares for the 2018 version.
  • Pink Gradation Quilt: cutting 2.5 inch x 4.5 inch pink rectangles
  • Spin Wheel: really not started, but supplies gathered. I might have to cut some more background fabrics. I probably have enough fabrics and just need to decide to start.
  • Windmill quilt: Still hunting and gathering. I am supposed to be cutting a variety of greys for the background, which required the purchase of a new template. Cutting is very therapeutic, so I should try and do it when I have a few minutes.

Other

  • Stepping Stones #3 using the Macaron pre-cuts from Hoffman. I have all the fabric in pre-cuts and am just waiting for space (and desire) in my schedule.

I bought some fabric at Sisters and the Tula Pink dots and stripes after Sisters, so I am down significantly on net usage. Still gross usage is just over 130 yards. My net 40 yards.  I would still be ecstatic if I could make it to 100 yards NET used by the end of the year, but I don’t think that is possible. I do have three quilts out at the quilter that could make my net number jump up, but 100 yards is a lot. It is good to have goals!

What’s on your list?

Donation Blocks – August 2018

More donation blocks. I keep making them.

Not as many as last month, but each one counts.