Tag: Color

The Trees

Some time ago, I talked about organizing my quilt photos on Flickr. For a number of photos, where I saw themes emerging, I used sets. This means that a variety of quilts from different shows might end up in the same set because they have a similar theme. I meant to talk about each set and highlight them for you and haven’t yet gotten to it.

Since I haven’t been sewing much (though I do have a few things to show you and talk about), I thought I would show you the trees. Trees have been on my mind lately, because they, IRL, are all nearly naked, though there are a few that still have some straggling red leaves on them.

When I was organizing the photos, I didn’t set out to have a set of trees. As I was looking through the photos, I saw a number of trees and thought there were enough to create a set. Mostly there are quilts, but there is one inspiration for a quilt photo as well. I thought it was really interesting to see the different interpretations of trees. Some of you are probably remembering that I pointed you to these photos already. You are correct. I am really not being lame. I just have trees on the mind. If you have a quilt photo depicting a tree that you would like to include, let me know.

Lovely Colors

Melody Johnson has a little series of quilts over at Fibermania that are quite wonderful. I love the colors of one as well as the slight tilt of the tree. I also like the blue lines on the left and the red diagonal lines on the right. scroll down when you get to her blog to see the others.

Pools of Color

Yarnstorm has a gorgeous quilt on her blog, which renews my belief in simplicity and that I did the right thing with Thoughts on Dots. Her post talks about her pool quilt. Stop reading now! Right click (so you don’t leave my blog completely, thanks) and go read the post on her new quilt top.

Now that you are back and ooohing and aahing, I hope you enjoyed the quilt. First of all, the photograph that she has shared with us is wonderful. It has made me realize that, perhaps, you would be happy with ripples of color instead of the whole quilt perfectly centered with no extraneous info peeking in? Also, the way she talks about the colors and the quilt is like a poem. It reminds me of some writer who I have read recently, or whom I have read in the past and made an impression on me.

The quilt looks like it is made from all of those tightly, yet very soft cottons. I know that is not 100% the case as I have some of the fabrics. I don’t think any of them are loosely woven, though.

I also like the way she has used large scale prints. It seems like some of the flowers are fussy cut (notice the centers?).

I have been thinking about another quilt of squares only and I am inspired once again. We’ll see how it progresses.

I am out of town again. Back soon with photos.

Snowballs Really Flowering

I spent the weekend in LA. No machine. I brought my handwork with me and was able to sew four Cross blocks (Flowering Snowballs)! I have said that each one takes me an hour and a half, but these, except perhaps the first, did not take me an hour and half each. I really blew through them.

One has two pinks, but I tried hard on the others to make all the corner pieces different colors. I started to run out of greens and really need to add some violet or purple to the mix. I’ll work on cutting some different colors this weekend.

Now that I have a good amount of blocks, I decided to lay them out. They are really looking good! I just love the design that is made when the blocks are set together.

43/47

In order to complete a Pineapple block, including the corners, I need 47 fabrics. In an ideal world they would all be different. Without the corners, which, in this project, I have not yet applied, I need only 43 fabrics. As a result, the Pineapple side blocks are really causing me fits. I need so many more background fabrics than I did with the center blocks. I just don’t feel like I have enough.

In reality, I may actually have enough. Currently I have 32 background fabrics in active use. This means I should only have to use some of them twice. But someway, it is not working out out for me.

Contributing to this problem are the marginal fabrics. Of those 32 active background fabrics, 5 are what I would call marginal. If I had more background fabrics, I wouldn’t use them. The marginal fabrics are defined in my head as having too much color or too much concentrated or prominent color. They stand out much more in these background blocks that are merely supposed to frame the piece.

Also contributing to the problem was the arrangement of the strips. I had arranged them so duplicate strips were dispersed throughout the pile. This wasn’t working, because I would come across a fabric that I had just used. I could certainly skip it, but I felt like I was skipping too many fabrics. I rearranged them today so all like fabrics are together. Hopefully, this arrangement will work better.

I keep looking for more background fabrics, but I have found that I need to shop for these in person or I end up with fabrics that I already have. I am tempted by three or four on eQuilter today, such as Lots-A-Dots’ collection from Santee Print Works, but because I am looking for more subtle differences than online shopping can generally show, I am reluctant to click the buy button. I don’t know when these came out so I will have to see. I put them on my wish list, so I don’t have to go hunting for them again.

Despite the trials and tribulations of backgrounds, I managed to make the last two corner blocks today.
Hooray for me! This leaves me 14 straight side blocks to sew. I doubt I will get the block sewing done by the end of the year, but I want to try. I was desperate to start the Chocolate box quilt this weekend. I just wanted something fresh to work on. Instead I got Thoughts on Dots back from the fair and put it on my bed. That seems to have assuaged my need for something new and fresh for the moment.

Other Asides~~

I was looking at Artquiltmaker.com yesterday and thinking about updating it with Thoughts on Dots as a finished project when I realized how bad some of the photos are. I think I will give my mom an armload of quilts to take to the photographer next time I see her. If I don’t see her before the 7th, then I will take them myself. I don’t want crappy photos on my website and don’t have the equipment to take good photos of my larger projects. Thoughts on Dots will be in that batch as well.

Serendipity Puzzle came back from the quilter and it is fantastic!
Here is the whole thing. You can’t see much of the quilting, but this is a reminder of what the quilt looks like.

Here is a detail (sorry for the blur) of the corner and the border. Notice the slight spiral in the white corner flower (just inside the blue border).

Not sure how it shows up for you, but I like the way she did the quilting so the Dutchman’s Puzzle blocks still show up.

Detail of back. Notice how she used at least a couple of different thread colors.

Now I have a second quilt to bind.

New Fabrics from Denver and Seattle

I am in Denver for a conference related to my work work. I took a day off to hang out and relax a little bit. St. JCN came to join me and brought me these nice fabrics. The cups are, dare I say, cheerful! And the bonus is there is NO brown. See, fabric manufacturers, brown is not mandatory in coffee fabric.

The other thing about these fabrics is that they are not very good for my quiltmaking, except for the dots, of course. I just don’t use conversationals, but they are fantastic for napkins. Periodically, in the past, I have made napkins out of two fat quarters of fabric sewn together with a decorative stitch. Often, the napkin project became a big drag, because of the corners, usually. You can read a little about my last napkin foray here. With my recent Teacher Pillow experience, I am beginning to think I am just a quiltmaker and not much of a crafter. That is, however, a whole different subject and I am not getting into it now.

What I am getting around to is yet another reason for St. JCN’s nickname. She said she would make me napkins out this fabric. HOORAY! New napkins. What a saint!

The first shop we visited was after our gallery tour was the Golden Quilt Company. The Golden Quilt Company is across the street from the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum (very convenient, because I was ready to touch some fabric after seeing the exhibit). What a friendly crowd! Not only did I find great fabrics, but we were allowed to take photos of whatever we wanted in the shop. Nice!

GQC had lots of brights and clear colors. The space was open and airy and on a quaint main drag in a nice looking small town.

As you can see, I branched out and bought non-dot fabrics.

Another shop that we visited was called Harriet’s Treadle Arts.


This is the shop of Harriet Hargrave, the machine quilting queen. The shop has been open for nearly 26 years, which seems like a long time in quilt world to me. Kim and Kari helped us in the shop and were extremely friendly. We heard all about their projects and the samples they made and they heard about our projects. The shop is medium sized and in a stand-alone building on W. 44th Ave in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. I didn’t find it on Google or on Yahoo Local. It also was not mentioned on any of the web lists that I found before my trip. We were directed there by Jessica at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum. The store is decorated with lots of medium – dark wood and carries lots and lots of reproductions. However, the store does not exclusively have reproductions. As you can see, there were plenty of dots and brights and batiks to satisfy me. They carried lots and lots of tools, had a medium sized classroom, lots of great samples and a huge selection of books. I was pleased to see that they carried solids and Perl cotton as well.


I pretty much cleaned out their dots selection. 😉

I have done a lot in the past few days and will continue the travelogue another day.

Not Enough Colors

Need More Colors.
I was thinking tonight as I stared at my Pineapple and Cross Block (Flowering Snowball) projects that there are just not enough colors in the rainbow. Each time I add a strip to the Pineapple, it seems like I have just added that color. Granted, the blues are different and they have bigger dots or little splotches, but sometimes I just think I need more colors. Not sure what those colors would be, but I do think I need more.

Life is Good
Despite my back hurting and feeling a bit unwell and trying all day not to tell off a bigwig at work for being self-centered and oblivious, Life Is Good.

Why?

Because of quiltmaking. I was able to indulge almost all day in some kind of quiltmaking activity. I listened to Alex Anderson’s Quilt Connection podcasts. While she is a little big giggly and squealy, once she gets into the groove, I really enjoy the info she provides. I listened, again, to a couple of podcasts, which sent me to Paula Nadelstern’s site and also to Jinny Beyer’s site. I also looked at Valori Wells site and found that she has a blog.

Paula Nadelstern’s kaleidoscopic quilts are amazing. I love her work. After listening to the podcast, I went to the library’s site and reserved her book, Puzzle Quilts. It is still available on her website, but I want to look at it before I buy it.

Jinny Beyer puts up a new block every week. I haven’t found one that I really want to make yet, but in terms of inspiration she is the go-to-girl. I have to admit that I don’t go there every week and look at the new block. I was also reminded that I need to look at her handpiecing book and find out what she uses to mark around her templates.

I don’t think I have used any of Valori Wells’ fabrics, but she is a good speaker and inspirational. After listening to her interview, I wanted to go home and find all of my large scale prints, download VW’s patterns and make a large scale print quilt! It is so thrilling to be able to listen to something about quilting, look at a website and then come home and look at the book and sew.

When I came home the Collaborative Quilting book by Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran was calling to me -(read my post about it). Alex also interviewed Gwen and I was reminded how much G.M. is inpired by old patterns. She and Alex made the point that we are where we are today because of the ladies that came before us. They also talked about giving credit and it occurred to me that if you give credit, people will come to you because you have a link to your inspiration or because they know they will find the information from you.

I know some of you only come for the photos, so here is the Cross Block (Flowering Snowball) that I finished on Mother’s Day.

Handing Out Medals

When a person needs a fabric fix, a person needs a fabric fix and here is no getting around it. I went on a small fabric buying binge this weekend in order to get my fix.

Fast Threads should be given a medal for the quickest service. I ordered fabric from them on Friday and here it was on my doorstep today. I found them through the Quiltshops.com search engine. I was looking for some new dots to add interest to the Pineapple. That project makes me feel cheerful, but it certainly is a fabric hog. Not in amounts, but in variety.

On Saturday, I stopped at Black Cat to get some rotary cutter blades and found 3 background fabrics for the Pineapple. The one on the right I already had, but think it will be useful in another dot quilt I have planned, so I bought some more.


Seams Sew Right quilt shop, also on Quiltshops.com search engine, is in medal contention as well. I only got two fabrics from them, but probably should have gotten more of the background dot. Nothing stopping me, I suppose. I love the purple with the white dots and will probably have enough to choke a horse eventually. I like their tag line: the Quilter’s Candy Store. The dots sure look like candy!

I also bought some fabrics from eQuilter yesterday, but haven’t received them yet. One black on white I really liked is out of stock. Oh well. It sat too long on my wish list.

What to Do When you Win the Lottery

The lottery is up to $25 million, so I guess I didn’t win on last week’s ticket and will have to buy another one. If I had won, I would do the exact same thing that I did this weekend: sewing, visiting with quiltmaking friends, writing about quiltmaking and more sewing. I could have done without the proposal writing and the cold I have been fighting off, but you can’t have everything.


You may notice that these blocks look very like the blocks that JulieZS showed me on Wed. I looked the block up in Around the Block, a very useful book by Judy Hopkins from several years ago. I was sort of inspired to try the block, so I made the big one for Julie and the 2 6″ blocks for two different friendship quilts that someone requested. The small ones are smaller than I anticipated, but perhaps I will make a couple of more in order to fill in more space in those friendship quilts.

It was Mav-Week as well. In addition to seeing Julie, Mrs. K was in town, so we met over in Oakland and went to lunch at a nice little vegetarian place (excellent lemonade) down Washington and around the corner from the 10th Street convention center entrance. Mrs. K was visiting the Bead Expo. I thought about going, too, but decided to sew and try to shake the cold instead. Of course, she and Vicki had to show me their purchases and, among other things, Mrs. K had bought a strand of gorgeous millefiori (according to St. JCN) beads.



I had to have them. Mrs. K was kind enough to sell them to me and go back and get another set for herself. I am thrilled. Mrs. K puts them on the ends of the ties to her prayer boxes and I will have to find something equally fantastic to do with them. I hope you can get a sense of what they look like from the photos above.

As I mentioned, I also pressed the fabric that St. JCN sent me. I am quite proud of myself for not letting it languish for months unwashed and then pressing it right away. To add icing to the cake, I cut pieces out of the new fabrics as well: strips for the pineapple and corners for the Cross Block. Below are the corners for the Cross Blocks (perhaps called Royal Cross! More on THAT later) that I cut out of those fabrics.

Reorganization of Strip Project – Housecleaning

You may remember the post from February 18 where I talked about the perils of strip piecing. My librarian side took over this weekend and I created a new system for organizing and using my strips for the pineapple project.

The above shows my neatly organized strips. I have divided them into color piles, as you can see. The idea is that I will start from the left and select one strip/fabric for each color I need in the pineapple block. When I am done with that color, I will put the strip on the bottom. I will move across the range of piles selecting one from each pile until I need to start from the left again. For the backgrounds, I will just take 4 at a time and put them on the bottom when I am done. We’ll see how it works.

My other challenge today was in the fabric closet.

I came home after a meeting to a fabric avalanche. It is not quite all picked up, but will be soon. I wonder if the fabric goddess is telling me something.

Google/Blogger notified me that I am using 65 MB of my 1024 MB. I guess I will have to include fewer photos, make them smaller or find somewhere else to store photos. The latter is ideal as I think all 7 of my faithful readers enjoy the photos.

Pineapples are Pretty

The title was inspired, for no particular reason, except that it struck my fancy, by a poster at the Castro Theatre advertising Pretty in Pink, the 1980s movie. Molly Ringwold’s hair was precious.


I finished two more Pineapple blocks for a total of 8 now. I feel like I should have more, but I don’t. As I keep reminding myself this is an ongoing project with no deadline. I am enjoying seeing the evolution of the piece.

The blocks, all together, look pretty good.

I notice an interesting secondary pattern developing. I knew i would, but am just surprised at how much I like it.

First two Pineapple Blocks Finished

Learning to do something new makes the first two blocks or parts of a project practice. For this project, and, yes, it is now on the project list, I am pretty pleased with these two blocks. The blocks are fairly flat, there is no paper to rip or muslin to quilt through.

I spent some time yesterday putting the last two rows on as well as the corners. I may have to remove the corners and put others on, as they need to be a bit bigger, but we will see.

I am very pleased with how the fabrics look together.

I am still cutting strips, which is a drag, but I will be happy when I have piece of all of my dots cut.

Not Enough Dots?

The Pineapple class, about which I have been talking on and off for the past week, is today. I began packing my supplies and materials and got into a panic that I don’t have enough dots in enough different scales and colors. I want to have a wide variety to provide interest. I rummaged through everything to find more and came up with two that I had washed last week, but needed to be ironed. I ironed them, but the stack still looks pathetic. One of them is a Michael Miller fabric similar to the one below, but with more of a sky blue background than the soldier blue depicted below.

I hope I am just having the last minute jitters and really do have enough fabric.

Critters on Etsy



I saw these plush critters on Etsy. While I like the “wild abandon design,” I also like the color choices. The red and blue critter doesn’t look too Fourth of July-ish and the pink and green is just the right shade not to be too preppy. I am also enamoured with the stitching. I have often struggled with how to put stuffed items (mostly pillows) together and have them look good. This London artist does it very well.