Least Favorite Color and How I Use It

Posted on December 13, 2019December 13, 2019 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Color, Fabric, Finished Quilts, Quilting / Leave a comment

Yesterday for the 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge we talked about our favorite color, so today we are discussing our least favorite color. I think all colors have their place in design, but in the world of fabric, brown is hands down my least favorite color. It only has a minor representation in my fabric stash, but I do use it from time to time.

No color is truly ugly if it is used in conjunction with appropriate colors and in the right proportions. The first way I incorporate my least favorite color is to use it in very small amounts to provide a moment of contrast to the overall design. In Synthesized Slivers there are quite a few pieces of brown, but they are only exposed in 1/8″ wide strips.

Brown also played the role as a minor accent color in this Marsala Mini Quilt. In this instance, the print on the tan fabric helped to tie it into the overall design.

Marsala Mini Quilt

On very rare occasions, a project needs to use brown to tell the story of an image. This was the case in my π, pi, PIE! mini Quilt. (I do think that, in most instances, you can use colors other than brown to depict things such as tree trunks. But I like to do some out of the box color schemes!)

π, pi, PIE!

Sometimes you just have to jump in and embrace the color you don’t care for. Upward Perspective was created for a Curated Quilts mini quilt challenge, and the color palette was part of the challenge. In this instance, I just went with it. This isn’t a go-to color scheme for me, but the colors balanced well enough to make a successful quilt.

I just realized I only use brown fabric in mini quilts! Maybe I’ll have to try incorporating it into a larger scale project. What is your least favorite fabric color? Have you ever made yourself give it a try?

I am excited to be participating in this year’s 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge hosted by Cheryl Sleboda of Muppin.com, and I hope you will have the chance to check out some of the other awesome blogs that are participating this month.

Favorite Color Palette

Posted on December 13, 2019 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Color, Finished Quilts, Quilting / Leave a comment

Today the prompt for the 31 Day Blogging Challenge was our favorite color, and it will come as no surprise to most of you that my go-to color is pink. The exact tone of pink that is my favorite varies over time, but it is always pink! This year Pantone agreed with my aesthetic and made Living Coral the 2019 color of the year.

Pink appears frequently as a key color in my quilts, and I thought it would be fun to see how I’ve used it in the past year. I used the Pantone Living Coral color in a dominant manor in two quilts, The Value of Coral and Forward and Back.

Hot pink is another favorite hue, and I used it in the Row by Row design I did this year.

It also appeared in the wall quilt version of the block, Ice Cream on the Beach.

I even managed to make a couple animals in my Zoo Family Portrait quilt bright pink!

Pink plays a dominant role in one of my matchstick quilting panels as well.

And pink in a huge range of specific hues played a role in creating my Stripe Club quilt.

Did you have a color that dominated your personal palette this year?

Show Jury Results for AQS Daytona Beach and Road to California

Posted on December 7, 2019December 7, 2019 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilt Shows, Quilting / Leave a comment

Most major quilt shows require you to enter your quilts online well ahead of the actual show. During this online entry, you upload two photos of your quilt, one full shot and one detail photo. Using these photos, and sometimes the written description you provide, a group of jurors select the quilts that will be on display at the show. Once the selected quilts are shipped to the shows, judges assess the quilts and choose the winners. But a judge never sees the quilts that don’t get juried in, so this is a critical step in the life of a show quilt!

I always like it when show acceptances come in around the time I’m entering more shows. Its encouraging to have something accepted when you’re putting yourself out there. This year both Road to California and AQS: Daytona Beach had jury results come in around late November, which is right before QuiltCon and AQS: Paducah entries are due.

This was my first time entering Road to California. In 2020, I am hoping to add a couple new shows into the mix, and this is one of them. I entered two quilts for my first attempt, and both were accepted! Complementary Convergence was will be in the Other Large Quilts category.

Lateral Ascension was accepted into the Abstract category.

AQS Daytona Beach had an entry deadline in October, and the notifications came in before Thanksgiving. I entered two quilts, and they were both accepted!

This will be the first contest for Zoo Family Portrait!

Ice Cream on the Beach will also be making it’s first contest appearance!

Entering new contests and quilts is always exciting. It will be fun to read the judges comments for a new show, and see how my new quilts do at a show I have entered before.

Zoo Family Portrait Block of the Month

Posted on December 3, 2019December 3, 2019 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Finished Quilts, Patterns, Quilting / Leave a comment

This year’s block of the month is my best pattern yet- at least I think it is! This is my third year designing a block of the month for Dabble and Stitch in Columbus, Ohio, and the animal theme is proving to be a hit!

The quilt is designed using photographs I have taken at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium over the course of four years. If I was lucky, each zoo visit would yield one or two good animal photos, and I ultimately ended up with about two dozen potential animals to incorporate. In selecting animals for the final design, I wanted to make sure different types of animals and different regions of the world were represented. Compositionally, it also became important to have animals of different sizes to make the overall design interesting to look at.

Value is an important aspect to the success of the design. Pictorial quilts can sometimes flatten the image they are depicting, so every color used in the quilt has a dark, medium, and light version. There is also a very dark blue and a very dark red to add even more depth to the animals. I have never been a person tied to the literal color of things, so the palette I selected has bright, whimsical colors. If bright colors aren’t your thing, you can use any color palette as long as you pay attention to the value of your fabric choices. If you like the fabrics I used, you can order the optional Painter’s Palette Solids Kit to go with the pattern.

All of these blocks are created using foundation paper piecing, and anyone with a general understanding of the technique will be able to construct the quilt. If you have little or no FPP experience, that fine too! We made a YouTube video explaining foundation paper piecing and there are general instructions included in the pattern. We started the block of the month in August, but you can jump in anytime!

Let’s do a quick walkthrough of the blocks. We have been joking that this is more of a polygon of the month more than a block of the month since none of the blocks are square!

We kick things off with the Koala block. This one of the most challenging photos to get since koalas sleep most of the day. This koala was reaching for some eucalyptus, but in this design it appears to be reaching out to touch the flamingo.

The backs of the flamingo and tortoise are next. I was so excited when the tortoises decided to come to the front of their enclosure for a photo. The flamingos, on the other hand, were always happy to show off their plumage!

Next is the flamingo head and the body of the bear.

In the fourth block, we construct the tortoise head and the body of the frog. Yes, the frog is actually blue!

It was an unseasonably warm winter day that I captured this lion in the perfect pose.

The penguins at the zoo love to pose for the guests and there are so many to choose from, I could probably do an all penguin quilt!

When I started this project, I would have thought monkey photos would be easy, but it was more challenging since most are in glass enclosures. I finally found success with the Vervet Monkey.

The bear in this quilt is a brown bear who resides at the zoo with his brother.

The red pandas spend most of their time resting high above in the trees, but it is such a treat when they come down to play!

Giraffes are among my favorite animals, so I thoroughly enjoyed watching them for extended periods of time while waiting to capture the perfect pose.

The kangaroo enclosure at the zoo has an open walkway, so a kangaroo may cross your path. This kangaroo had been an ambassador animal until this year, so it loves to show off for the humans!

The cockatoos at the zoo share an enclosure with the kangaroos, and it is so fun to see them up close.

I loved making this quilt so much that I’m making a second one! If you would like to join us for this block of the month adventure, you can purchase the pattern and optional kit from Dabble and Stitch!

Quilt Stats

Title: Zoo Family Portrait Quilt

Size: 58″ x 83.5″

Techniques: Foundation Paper Piecing

Quilting: Free Motion quilting on an A-1 longarm

Fabric: Painter’s Palette Solids by Paintbrush Studios in 25 colors

Batting: Hobbs Tuscany Wool and Hobbs 80/20 Cotton/Poly blend

Thread: Quilted with 50wt Aurifil in 19 colors

Binding: Bias binding, machine stitched to the front, hand finished on the back

Urban Cabins

Posted on June 30, 2019 by thenotsodramaticlifeadmin / Posted in Finished Quilts, Quilting, Quilting Community / Leave a comment

Earlier this year a quilt group I belong to, The Columbus Modern Quilters, issued a challenge based on a photograph one of our members took in downtown Columbus, Ohio. (You can see the photo and challenge requirements by clicking the link above.) In the image, parking garages with painted murals stand out against a bright blue sky. We were challenged to use this photograph for inspiration in creating any type of sewn project. Urban Cabins is my interpretation.

This quilt is entirely improvisationally pieced, although I did use rulers to help with construction. I began with fabric bits from my scrap bin, and incorporated larger pieces of fabric as the project grew. In the original photo, I loved how the brightly colored murals enlivened the surroundings even though they only took up a small portion of the image. To capture this overall feeling, I included centralized areas of color that spark into their more subdued surroundings. Concrete and sky colors of tans, greys, and blues dominate the most surface area of the quilt, but the bright colors give the piece life

With so much of the quilt being comprised of similar subtle colors, texture, both visual and physical, played a significant role in completing the design. The use of both prints and solids create visual shifts in texture, while physical changes between cotton and linen create further interest. Occasionally a selvage edge is exposed to further enhance the textural variations.

For the quilting, I decided to use evenly spaced, vertical lines to pull the design together, while not overpowering the design of the quilt top. Vertical lines evoke the energy and feeling of a bustling downtown environment.

I was excited to discover the perfect backing fabric in my stash. I had purchased it on clearance a long time ago, knowing it would make a great quilt back at some point. I liked how the bold print varies across the width of the fabric, giving it a mural-like vibe that relates to the original inspiration image.

A facing was the perfect finish to this quilt. With an energetic design like this, I think it is important to allow the viewer’s eye to continue all the way to the edge of the quilt without the visual barrier of a binding. Fortunately, I had just enough backing fabric to line up the printed motifs on three sides of the quilt. I would have loved a perfect match, but there wasn’t that much extra fabric! The fourth side had black circles, so a solid black fabric worked to finish the edge.

Quilt Stats

Title: Urban Cabins

Size: 30″ x 40″

Techniques: Machine Piecing, Improvisation

Quilting: Straight line quilting with digital channel locks on an A-1 Longarm

Fabric: Cotton and linen solids and assorted cotton prints

Batting: Hobbs Tuscany Wool

Thread: Quilted with 50wt Aurifil

Binding: Faced with the remaining backing fabric and one strip of solid black fabric.