Final(ish) Color Choices

Okay, after more agonizing and tossing of fabrics all over my floor, I have a mostly complete color scheme. As I previously mentioned, I recently purchased a fat quarter bundle of a line called "geofabulous." I love the bright colors and the way they interact.

I was also intrigued because the pink and teal match Bonnie's color card exactly.  So the other day I sat down with some of these prints and tried to match them. Here is what I came up with:

The bottom flower or mandala print is what the colors are based upon. It got a big thumbs down from my mom but I showed it to the ladies in my guild and they were ok with it.

There are a few remaining questions, and I need to decide the answers fast.

1. Do I use the lime or lavender as a stand-in for Bonnie's yellow?  The other will replace Bonnie's green. The yellow is a single large print instead of many scraps like the other colors. On the one hand, the lime has that brightness that the yellow has. On the other hand, lime is a shade of green so shouldn't I leave it with the greens and make the lavender the yellow?
2. As I relooked over the fabric requirements, there are a LOT of blacks and whites in this quilt. They are clearly an important component of the design. To match that fabric line I was trying to go for more beige and navy. But maybe I should stick with black and white. The two options are below.

Beige and Navy:

Black and White:

What do you think? 

Grand Illusion Color Scheme

I am still pondering away on how to perfect my color scheme for the Grand Illusion mystery quilt.

After getting some initial feedback from my last post, it was clear that at the very least, the greens I had picked were totally wrong. At the least, those will need to change. I decided to start with one color and build from there.

The teals are definitely staying, because I bought a ton of yardage in this shade, specifically for this quilt. I feel like I've done  good job sticking with the color card.

Next I added back in the yellow. I think the yellow and the teal play off each other well.

Next, the pinks. I ditched a lot of the much darker pinks to get back to the color card.

As you can see, the pinks are just a bit too...pink. They need a bit more salmon/coral in them.

Here are all three colors together.

It's ok, but a little too saccharine. But check out how it changes when I slightly swap out the shade of pink:

Much better! The salmon-y shade gives it a little more grit. But here we reach an impass, because as you see, these three colors form a triad.

The above shot is from one of my most well-used books, "Color Play," by Joen Wolfrom. Who by the way has a class on craftsy about color, which I just might have to try. 

So the problem here is we have a trio of colors that go well together, but we need FOUR colors. You can't just toss a fourth color into a triadic color scheme!

Nevertheless, I tried to find the perfect fourth. How about purple? I have seen online that many are choosing to swap out purple for green. This color scheme does not do it for me. It's still too sickly sweet.

How about swapping that yellow for a pale lime?

I definitely prefer this one. What if I go with an even darker lime?

Maybe? I'm not sure how I feel about it. What's funny is I originally rejected those limes but if you swap out the purple for the yellow...

...we are back to Bonnie's original color scheme! Which looks much better now that I have corrected the hues of the pink and green. However, one reason I am hesitant to stick with this color scheme is that it is suspiciously close to the colors that I used for Bonnie's mystery last year!

Here are last year's colors:

I certainly don't need two quilts in the same shades, and for that reason alone I want to mix things up. 

While visiting my local quilt shop last week, I bought a fat quarter bundle from a lovely line called "geofabulous." I noticed that the teal, pink, and green all matched the colors Bonnie had chosen, so I wondered if I could get inspiration from the line. The other primary shade used in that line is a navy blue. Below are four fabrics from the line.

And then when ironing today, I realized that my ironing board cover uses the same color scheme!

Hmmm...think there's something to this?

I tried out the navy FQ with my other colors:

I like that the navy tones down all the super bright and intense shades of the others. However, I am very hesitant to use this color scheme. Last year I accidentally messed up my colors and ended up using pink where Bonnie used yellow. If you look at her quilt, the yellows and whites blend together to form diamonds. If you look at mine (below), that diamond shape is muddied.

For that reason, I am hesitant to swap out a very bright shade like yellow for a very dark shade like navy. I think it could ruin the effect that Bonnie has in mind for her quilt, especially with a name like "Grand Illusion," I bet there are some secondary patterns that will appear in the design.

So we are still up in the air on the colors. At least I have corrected my hues for green and pink. What remains is to find a scheme that is pretty, not too different from Bonnie's, but also not too similar to what I did last year. Tough!

Another Finish

As we are nearing the end of the year, I am FINALLY making progress on my to-do list! It took 11 months, but I am able to check off another project.

Here is my bear bargello quilt! This quil is designed to be a snuggly couch quilt. After hearing a lot of whining from certain people about their feet always sticking out from the bottom of my quilts, I made this one super long. 

In this photo I am standing on a 3 foot stepladder! So there should be no problems with cold toes under this guy!

This quilt started back in California with a simple layer cake.

The layer cake turned into a bargello, which was lovely but too small at about 40".

And from that bargello, we eventually got the quilt you see today!

I'm just glad it's done.  The back is super soft "ultra cuddle fleece" from Joann's. Its almost a faux-velvet feel. After I found the right needle to prevent the back from being pulled to the front (ball point is the solution), I had no trouble sewing with it. It was so smooth that I think it actually aided the quilt in gliding along during my quilting.  And I like how it shows my quilting lines but doesn't show the actual stitches themselves. I stuck with really basic quilting on this in order to keep it fluffy.

And now, onto more projects! Like Christmas presents. I need to get everything done before Bonnie's mystery begins, because once it starts it is important to me to keep up with the clues and not fall behind. I will keep working hard over the next three weeks to get everything checked off my to-do list. The colors for Bonnie's mystery are still being chosen, I'll post more on that soon. For now, the green is definitely out and the teal definitely in. Nothing else is decided.

On another pleasant note, this past month was my turn for our new little bee, which we are calling "New Bee on the Block." We are all new to bees and still figuring it out as we go. Anyways, here are the stars everyone made for me.

These will be a quilt someday, emphasis on the someday! And of course the minute I tried to take a photo my cat said "oh I see you are trying to do something over there, let me get in the way!"

Cats, gotta love 'em!

Fabric Choices

Well I have been staring for many days at my fabrics for Bonnie's Grand Illusion mystery quilt, and something is not quite right. Here is what I've got right now:

The colors aren't great in these photos but I chose to leave them because I want the photos to be comparable to each other...so hopefully all of the colors are screwy by the same amount! 

These colors just aren't speaking to me. They're okay, but I'm not in love with them. And color is totally crucial to a quilt, so if I don't love them now, I doubt I will love them after cutting and sewing thousands of tiny pieces.

So...which color is wrong? The yellow is admittedly not my favorite. I don't normally use a lot of yellows and oranges. So I tried some other alternatives:

I do kind of like how this grey looks, but the color palette stills feels incomplete.

This is actually a very yellow-y lime. I kind of like where it's heading, but we've already got plenty of green and "cool" colors. 

Then I thought, maybe the yellow isn't the problem. I feel like these colors do need some kind of yellow-y hue to tie them together. I have always been bothered by the green and the aqua because to my naked eye they look practically identical. And then when I take a photo of them they look very different. 

So I went ahead and got rid of the green, and put in this nice royal purple instead.

 Hmmm...I like where it's going. How about lime instead of yellow?

I like it! What do you think? I'm going to keep thinking about what I want to do. Luckily the first clue doesn't come out for three more week!

Frustrating Sewing Day

Today was supposed to be a super accomplished sewing day, but instead it ended up being one of those days where nothing got accomplished. Don't lie, I know you have those too!

I had decided to sit down and knock out this bear bargello quilt.

It was fun to make, but the honeymoon has worn off and I am off% ready to be done with it.

One reason I'm done with this quilt is that at some point, something went massively awry with the fusible web. I was using heat 'n bond, which I know is on the lower end of fusibles but I have used it many times before without incident. At some point, I have no idea when, why, or how, the fusible somehow stained the fabric. It's not too noticeable in my salmon because they are meant to look scaly. But its really obvious on this bear in particular because I only put a strip of fusible down to try to keep him soft.

See the shadow on his forehead? That's the fusible web. You can see it has imprinted some kind of grid pattern too. (sorry for the lint, ignore that!) Also all of the fused pieces are crazy stiff. I know heat n bond can be stiff, but this is a whole new level of stiffness. I am thinking that maybe all of this is related to it being expired fusible? I don't know if it actually is, but it certainly could be two years old at this point.

So anyways, ready to get this quilt the heck out of here!

Joann's had a big sale all week, so I went over there and purchased some crazy soft and comfy "ultra cuddle" fleece. My boyfriend has a ratty old blanket made of this material and he takes it everywhere he loves it so much. I will admit it is super soft stuff. But I've never sewn with it before so today was an adventure in getting to know this fabric!

First when I sewed the two chunks of the backing together, I didn't realize that the grains were going in the opposite direction for the two pieces. It is a velvety material so grain really matters. Then when attempted to resew it correctly, my thread would NOT stop breaking. I tried everything! I changed the needle, wound a new bobbin, rethreaded the machine, changed the foot, and finally took apart the machine and cleaned and oiled it. I'm not sure what worked but finally something seemed to click and the breakages ceased. (phew!)

So onto my porch for a little spray basting:

The advantage and disadvantage of this cuddle stuff is that it is really clingy. So it was easy to pull it nice and smooth for the basting but it also wrinkles really easily. We'll see how well it keeps its position during quilting.

Speaking of quilting, that was the next thing I tried. And then promptly stopped. Because every single stitch was bringing up pilled backing fluff.

So if you have any tips on that, let me know. For now I guess I am setting it aside and returned to plugging away at my skill builder BOM. I am still a number of blocks behind, but this week made progress on the book shelf block:

I have started to just do my own thing on this quilt. This block was supposed to be made with a glueing technique that I despised, so I just pieced it following a tutorial here. I guess I am more set in my ways than I thought because I have not wanted to use a lot of the new skills that are being taught in this skill builder!

Okay one last thing I accomplished this week, to end on a high note.

I have taken up jogging, even though I hate it, because it's good exercise and a great time to chat with my boyfriend and a great way to get to know our neighborhood. Just this week we found out that the high school less than a block away from us is actually a combined middle and high school! We learned this by jogging over there and jogging around their track for a bit.

Anyways, my little ipod has no clip and my shorts have no pocket. So in anticipation of a 5k race on Saturday, I modified my shorts with this little ipod holder.

 It took about two second to make with some scrap fabric, and it working like a charm at holding my ipod during the race. Woohoo!

Project Progress

Well I am pleased to say that my veggie quilt is done and off to it's new home at my parent's house!

And yes, I am making the world's worst face in this photo. The sun was too darn bright.

Here is my dad enjoying the quilt in Alaska. The perfect size for snuggling under in front of the tv!

Before I gave it to him, I ran it through the wash to get all of the glue that I used in the appliques out. I was sure to add three sheets of color catchers, but when I went to move the quilt to the dryer, my boyfriend asked, "Why did you add all of these fabric softeners?" Oops. Luckily all of my fabric had been prewashed so no bleeding occurred. 

I'm a recent convert to washing my quilts before I give them away. I read on a blog someone who was worried about things coming apart or bleeding in quilts she gave away, but she wanted the new owners to know the quilts were washable, but also to let her know if they had a problem in the wash. The best way around this is to wash it yourself! That way any washing disasters can occur BEFORE you give the quilt away. So that's what I've been trying lately.

Well now that my veggie quilt is out of the way, it's been time to tackle some other UFOs. 

My Celtic Solstice is ready to be quilted but stuck in the corner until my stencils arrive. Unfortunately they were mailed to California instead of to my new home in Missouri, and I haven't been able to get the stencil company to respond to my requests to re-mail them to the correct address.

Now last weekend my guild hosted our first big retreat, "Sew Me St. Louis." As usual, I have no photos. But it was a blast.

Here is all my stuff packed to go. I brought waaaaay too much, but I didn't want to run out of things to do. Everyone in the group brought projects they didn't want to work on, but had to. Being stuck in a room with a sewing machine is a great way to finish up those projects that have been dragging on. We were joking about trading projects because nobody liked the one they were working on.

The first thing I tackled was this bargello. It only needed a tiny bit of satin stitching, and now it is DONE! Quilting will come after Celtic Solstice is complete.

Then I worked on a few Christmas projects, managed to sew through my finger (yep), and got down to business with my Skill Builder BOM. I've fallen behind on this project (and I think I haven't even shared all my block finishes on here) but I am bound and determined to get it done by the end of the year. I don't want this project to drag on!

Here are the three blocks I completed over the weekend:

This is supposed to be spools of ribbon, FYI

All three of these were supposed to be completed with some kind of gluing technique, but after I tried it on the rotary cutter I determined that it was absolutely not my cup of tea and I used fusible web on the others.

In fabric news, I am working on my fabric choices for Grand Illusion:

I think I have the pinks down pat, although the color card is a little more salmon/coral than my pinks. I bought a lovely yellow that I think matches perfectly. But I am short on teals and as you can see, my greens are rather dark. I am debating if I want to go with the dark greens or go buy some lighter shades.

I am very excited because my mom will be participating this year with me! Working on a quilt is way more fun when there are others to work with. That's one reason I enjoyed the retreat so much, just being able to sit and chat with others about the problems we were facing on our quilts, to swap ideas and advice, was tons of fun!

Here are my mom's fabrics so far:

So bright and cheery!

Finally, my lovely monthly fabric bundle came in the mail yesterday. GORGEOUS, as always.

Do you do any monthly fabric clubs? I am loving this one, but realistically I haven't used many of the fabrics yet. They are fun and modern but for example they don't work well with a mystery like Grand illusion where the pattern should be subtle and color is most important. So I can't decide whether I should continue this club next year. But I really love receiving these, I look forward to them every month and it is a total delight when they arrive. So...what's your vote on whether I should continue?

Bonnie's New Mystery!!!

You guys. YOU GUYS!! Bonnie Hunter has posted the intro to her newest mystery quilt. I had an absolute blast and a half making Celtic Solstice last year and I CAN'T WAIT to do this year's!!!

I love Bonnie's quilts because they always look gorgeous. I know when I do her mystery quilt that I will love the outcome. Plus she always has such amazing technique tips...and all those small pieces really challenge me to get better at precision piecing.

Speaking of Bonnie's mystery, right now I am working on finishing Celtic Solstice! My goal was to complete it before her next mystery starts. The first clue doesn't go out until November 28 so I should be good. Here is my sandwich being put together last night.

This time I tried spray basting. We shall see how it works. To be safe I am stitching securing stitches in wash-away thread.  The batting is wool. I have never used wool before but I am quite excited about it. It seems quite soft and fluffy! Also this thing is a true behemoth. The biggest quilt I have ever made, literally. I'm basically in a wrestling match with it at the machine. I'll let you know how it goes!

Here our newest foster kitty, Rosie, models on the quilt. She is a real sweetie, she has been keeping me lots of company in the sewing room. :)