I love colour, but normally I don’t think of myself as a “blue” person. But I DO seem to be buying/collecting a lot of blue fabrics right now.. so it is time to dip into that growing stash. My favourite quilts to make are those that use a single simple block. That enables me to concentrate on the colour play at work in the quilt. Here are my inspiration fabrics for this quilt which I have purchased but not used yet: The blue in all of these fabrics ranges from a deep royal blue to navy to an almost inky blue-black. So I went to my “stash” and started cutting. I never jump right in and start sewing. I am all about “playing” on…
my adventures with colour and quilts
Posts from the “Blue” Category
Week 1: I am on my winter retreat- or more correctly, my retreat from winter. Weather here (Saint Simons Island, GA) is warm and sunny, so I am always surprised that the sun goes down so early. Even though I am no longer working and every day is like a vacation, this feels like a REAL vacation. I spend more time sewing, and only work on things I brought with me. The rest of my time is spent biking, walking the beach, exploring the island and environs, cooking, etc. This is what I have done in my first week here… it is a variation of the spider web quilt block, and I really love how the hexagon rings stand out. I realize I didn’t…
I really appreciate those days when I put aside everything that I need to do, and just play. I pinned a block on Pinterest called Ellen’s Snowball last year, and a year later I still love it, so I decided to make one, in shades of blue. It is paper pieced, which I have not done for a while, and makes a 12 1/2″ block. It went together easily, and the very centre is not too bumpy, considering how many pieces meet here. I now think I will make a medallion quilt, with this block as the centrepiece. I have accumulated quite a bit of blue / white fabrics, so I won’t need to visit any shops real time or online for more. (I think….).…
I made a plus quilt recently… I decided to make it one large plus from various yellow and blue fabrics, with white and beige for the background. I liked the idea of the large plus not being immediately obvious. BUT.. when it was done, I was not at all happy with it. It really needed more definition between the Plus sections and the Background sections. So I took out my paints, diluted them down, and painted the lighter sections.. here is a section as I was starting the paint job.. replacing the white background with a light yellow paint. (Sadly, no “before” photo of the entire quilt.) Below, you can see the completed yellow section.. much better! Next up, I starting work on the…
Kathy Doughty, of Material Obsessions, will be in Toronto this summer doing 4 days of workshops, along with a trunk show/lecture. She is being hosted by Quilts at the Creek, and you can find out about this fabulous outdoor show (and enter a quilt or two!) on their blog. I have always been totally impressed with her bold mix of patterns, colours and fabric styles all in one quilt. I may not be as brave as her, but she was the inspiration for these two quilts. The first is Soul Searching (from her book “Making Quilts with Kathy Doughty of Material Obsession)”. The second quilt is from her Super Nova pattern in “Adding Layers: Colour Design and Inspiration”. My version is mostly blue…
I posted a work-in-progress photo of this quilt a while ago, and for some reason have not posted about it since. It has been finished for quite a while (note the snow in the garden). Binding a quilt is my least favourite part, but I am loving the colour orange with EVERYTHING right now, so this was done pretty quickly. (Note: click on photos for larger image). It is resting happily on our bed right now, as it has moved up to the top of my favourites list. This is a great design for those of you looking to use up your scraps, which I did here. I did limit my colour range, and am so happy with the palette I chose. Click on…
I had a few quilts in the 2013 Quilts at the Creek show two weeks ago. This is an outdoor show at Black Creek Pioneer Village in Toronto- what a great place to display quilts. They look incredible swaying in the breeze, and come home smelling SO fresh. Here are two of my entries.. This is a Kaffe Fassett snowball design, and is one of the rare quilts that I made that is pretty faithful to the pattern. I bleached some of the lighter fabrics to give me a wider range of fabrics to work with, as I did not have a huge stash of pales.. something to work on! The design for this quilt started with the blue fabric. I cut it up…
