The Power of a Really Great Stripe: Maria Shell Workshop + Only Murders In the Building

Good Morning, Stitchy Peeps!  I am feeling clammy and gross and drowning in mucus quantities that have not been seen since the ectoplasm in the movie Ghostbusters.  I have an appointment at Urgent Care in an hour and a half, fingers crossed that whatever ick I've got is something that they can treat with medication.  Most likely it's COVID since my son just had it and I started getting sick several days after he tested positive, but my husband is just as sick as I am and he has tested negative for COVID four times.  Blech, blech, BLECH!

Meanwhile, here's what my design wall looks like three days after Part One of my 2-part Making Prints workshop with Maria Shell:

My Design Wall, 9 AM on Thursday

Our assignment between classes was to make a bunch of units based on the techniques/"prints" that she demonstrated in class, and put them up on our design walls.  Students are permitted to cut their fabric with rulers, but encouraged to try cutting without rulers in order to create more organic, irregular lines with their patchwork.  I'm cutting my fabric without rulers and finding that it's more difficult than you'd think to cut crooked and sew crooked on purpose!  

My Design Wall, 9 AM on Wednesday

The irregular striped units above were pieced the first day after class, and they incorporate all of the colors from my palette.  Initially we were told to create a 12-color palette, but I asked if I could sneak in more and got permission to do so during the class.  The extra colors allowed me to have three shades of brown instead of one and a royal blue as well as light blue.  I think I have 15 colors going on.  Anyway, when I did this first exercise of randomly pairing up my colors I was really pleased that I liked how pretty much every color looked with every other color in my palette.  I struggled to sew my strips together, though -- somehow even though I hadn't cut them straight, they were annoying me by looking straighter after I sewed them together and pressed the seams.  

Nanu Nanu! Borders Are In Progress for My Retro '80s Building Blocks Sampler

Y'all, PROGRESS IS HAPPENING on my Retro '80s Building Blocks quilt!  I foundation paper pieced my 6" border corner blocks yesterday:

6 inch Border Corner Blocks Completed

The fabrics in my corner blocks are Kona Cotton 1019 BLACK,  Kona Cotton 146 GLACIER, Kona Cotton 25 OCEAN, Kona Cotton 317 PERIDOT, Kona Cotton 476 GRELLOW, and Kona Cotton 1370 TANGERINE (By the way, this post contains affiliate links.  If you scroll all the way to the bottom, I've got links to where you can find every single fabric that I used in this quilt).  

Meanwhile, I've finally sewn the interior blocks of this quilt together.  (At which point a little devil on my shoulder whispers "You could be done with this now, if you skipped the borders..."). Begone, Devil!  Without the borders, the quilt would be too small to fit the bed!  😤

Here it is, draped (sideways) over my longarm frame for measuring:

Quilt Top Sewn Together, Sans Borders

I always take border measurements through the vertical and horizontal centers of the quilt top rather than at the edges, and that bar on my 13' long arm frame comes in handy for measuring.  It's a lot longer than my cutting table.

Using EQ8 with Pinterest to Create a Quilt Palette: AQS Letter Home, 5 Baby Quilt Options

AQS Letter Home Quilt, Original Colorway

Have you seen the AQS Letter Home QAL?  This one-block quilt caught my eye as I was hunting for quick but interesting baby quilt ideas.  Although the QAL (quilt-along) instructions are for a 60" x 60" finished quilt, this easily becomes a 42" x 42" quilt by shrinking the block size to 8" and adding a 2" border.  I do like the original AQS colorway (shown above), but since I was resizing the quilt in my EQ8 quilt design software anyway I thought I'd experiment with some alternative color palettes to see if I can come up with something I like even better.

Although I have thousands of images of quilts on my Pinterest boards, those are not my go-to boards for color inspiration.  Instead, I go to my Favorite Color Combinations board, where I've pinned everything from illustration art to interior design photos -- any image I come across with great color combinations that catch my eye gets pined to this board.

In the photo above, I have my EQ8 quilt design software open on the left side of my screen, and a browser window open to my Favorite Color Combinations Pinterest board open on the right hand side.  

I've set my Default Fabric Palette in EQ8 to contain all of the colors of Kona Solid fabrics, so I'm designing with actual fabric right out of the gate rather than just coloring a quilt and then having to find fabric matches afterwards.  With an image on the right side of my screen to use as a visual reference, I can try on all sorts of different color palettes until I find one that I like for my quilt.  Here's the inspiration photo I was using to pull a color palette for version of this quilt seen in the previous photo:

Yellow Revision: In Which Kona Canary is Fired, and Kona Grellow is Tapped for Replacement

I had high hopes of knocking out a few of the easier blocks for Anders' Beware the Ishmaelites sampler quilt over the weekend, but I was stymied by a color glitch.  My plan was to make all four of the predominantly yellow blocks, and I printed up my foundation paper piecing templates and my rotary cutting charts and headed upstairs to the studio...  But when I pulled out the two yellow shades of Kona Solid fabric that I'd used in my EQ8 design, I had serious misgivings about using them together in my quilt.  I decided to trust my software and just go with it, so I cut out the first block:

Um, NO, that's not going to work for me!  

Should I Jump Into BERNINA's Summer Sparkle QAL?

Oh my gosh, you guys -- I'm so smitten with a new quilt idea that I'm tempted to mask up and head to my not-quite-local quilt shop right NOW to buy fabric.  Never mind that I'm still slogging away at the long arm machine on my Spirit Song quilt, or that my son's Beware the Ishmaelites sampler is still languishing, untouched and barely begun, and my Modern Baby Clam Shells quilt has been cut out and waiting for me to start piecing it for an entire year...  I have eight works in progress at the moment, and I really have no business starting something new.

None of that stops me from wanting to start making THIS quilt:

44 x 44 Baby Version of BERNINA's Summer Sparkle Quilt-Along

Bernina has been hosting a quilt-along on their We All Sew blog featuring a pattern called "Summer Sparkle," designed by Faith Jones of Fresh Lemons Quilts.  I love Faith's aesthetic and have admired her work for years.  The pattern for this quilt is available on the We All Sew site for FREE here.

50 x 60 Summer Sparkle, Designed by Faith Jones for BERNINA

What do I love about Summer Sparkle?  First of all, I'm a huge sucker for star quilts.  I LOVE stars.  Second, I love how Faith has taken the simple, traditional sawtooth star block and given it a fresh, contemporary feel with her use of a gradient color scheme and her asymmetrical alternate block based on a 5-patch grid.  Plus, these 10" blocks should go together fairly quickly and the assembly of the top won't be a hassle, either, since there are no seams needing to be matched.

No Points to Match at Block Intersections Means Speedier Assembly of Quilt Top

So I love the quilt pattern and think I might want to make it, but of course I had to tweak it first in my EQ8 quilt design software.  I stuck with the 10" block size to keep things ruler-friendly for rotary cutting, but I reduced the number of blocks from 30 to 16.  This will significantly reduce the required investments of time (and fabric) for making my version of Faith's quilt.  

Recoloring in EQ8, Using Pinterest Images for Color Inspiration

I also wanted to change up the colorway in my version.  Faith's version in pinks and blues is lovely, but I'd rather not spend time making a quilt that looks exactly like everyone else's.  I have a Pinterest board called Favorite Color Combinations that I refer to sometimes for palette inspiration, which is what I was doing in the screen shot above.  I could do the same thing "in real life" at the quilt shop, by choosing a beautiful large scale, multicolor print bolt of fabric and then matching solid bolts of fabric to the colors in the print.

To bring my quilt up to a 44" x 44" size that would make a good baby gift, I added asymmetrical 2" borders with corner stones on just two diagonal corners.  These borders have the added benefit of moving all of my star points away from the quilt binding, so I don't have to worry about cutting off star points when I bind the finished quilt.  Win-Win!

The Colors I Ended Up With

I saved my design and printed out my yardage and rotary cutting instructions, but I'm loathe to go buy more fabric for another project that I might not actually get started on, ever.  I might just hang onto this one and pull it out the next time I have need of a baby quilt.

Is anyone else participating in Bernina's Summer Sparkle QAL?  Maybe I just need to see some other versions to make up my mind.  For now, I'm headed back to my long arm to continue quilting Spirit Song.

Stay safe and happy stitching, everyone!

I'm linking up today's post with:

MONDAY

·       Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

·       Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

·       BOMs Away Katie Mae Quilts  

TUESDAY

·       Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at Clever Chameleon

Where Do You Get Your Design Inspiration? Appliqué Inspiration From Interior Design Fabrics

I'm still plugging away at my Spirit Song quilt top, albeit intermittently.  So far I have four of the twelve 16" blocks completely assembled:

Four 16 Inch Blocks Assembled, Eight More to Go

It's tedious piecing at this point because I'm matching up triangles with seams that don't nest.  Lots of unpicking and finessing to get those triangle points to match up to my satisfaction!  But meanwhile, my mind is on other projects, inspired by everything I see around me.  If you're one of those sensible people who has made a resolution not to start any new projects or buy any new fabrics in 2020, you should probably stop reading this RIGHT NOW.  You have been warned...

So this gorgeous photo landed in my email in-box the other day in a newsletter from the interior design fabric supplier F. Schumacher: 

Linen Print Roca Redonda in Carbon and Multi from F. Schumacher, Retail $248/yd

I love how fresh and current this 18th century French botanical pattern looks in this colorway, updated with shades of coral, emerald and turquoise against that carbon gray background.  Wouldn't this be a fun color palette for an historic or traditional appliqué quilt pattern?  I especially love that dusky background color.

Moda's Ombre Confetti in Soft Black, available on Etsy here (affiliate link)

Moda's Ombre Confetti in Soft Black, available from an Etsy seller here, would give me a similar effect as a background fabric.  The black and gold metallic dots are clustered most densely near the selvages of the fabric and are much more sparse in the lighter parts of the fabric, so I'd likely use the middle areas of the fabric for my appliqué backgrounds and then use the areas along the selvages for borders or in pieced blocks.  

If you're not a fan of the metallic dots and you want to stay truer to the background in the inspiration print, you could try Sketch in Charcoal from Timeless Treasures, available on Etsy here:

Sketch in Charcoal from Timeless Treasures, available on Etsy here

Then, for the applique elements themselves, there are all sorts of delicious possibilities.  I could see this Jade Green Batik Blender from Timeless Treasures for some of the leaves:

Jade Green Batik Blender from Timeless Treasures, available on Etsy here

Kaffe Fassett Collectives prints from Free Spirit Fabrics would also work well for the appliqué elements.  

Philip Jeffries for Kaffe Fassett Collectives Bundle, available on Etsy here

I love fussy-cutting for applique from the oversized prints from Kaffe Fassett.  An emerald and turquoise flower or feather can make for a striking appliquéd leaf.  So much fun!  Back to the inspiration fabric from F. Schumacher:

Appliqué Inspiration Fabric, Roca Redonda in Carbon and Multi from F. Schumacher

Although I like Kaffe Fassett Collectives for some of the green and turquoise elements, the other colors in this palette are a bit more subdued.  To recreate the corals, aquas, and ochre shades found in my inspiration fabric, I'd probably turn to prints from Anna Maria Horner's Conservatory collection for Free Spirit Fabrics:

Anna Maria Horner's Conservatory collection for Free Spirit, available on Etsy here

Of course, I wouldn't be using ALL prints for my appliqué   I'd want plenty of solids and tonal solids as well.  I feel like I'd need to mix in a handful of luscious shot cottons for this project:

Peppered Cottons from Pepper Cory, available on Etsy here

In the photo above of Pepper Cory's Peppered Cotton swatches, you can see that different color yarns are used for the warp and weft of shot cottons, which gives them their fabulous color-shifting properties.  They're much more interesting than plain solid fabrics, yet the colors aren't hyper-bright to the point of distraction.  The effect is subtle, especially in an appliqué composition where the shot cottons are combined with batiks, prints, and true solids.

Last but certainly not least, I adore the tiny detailed elements of the F. Schumacher inspiration print fabric, many of which would be too small to execute as applique.  Those delicate vines, tiny leaves, and other details would be exquisite if they were embroidered using Sue Spargo's beautiful threads from Wonderfil:

Sue Spargo's Eleganza Threads from Wonderfil, available on Etsy here

And, while we're at it, some of those flower centers would probably benefit from a smattering of seed beads here and there, so long as our quilt isn't going to be used on a bed and frequently laundered.  My pick, to keep the palette true to my inspiration fabric while adding just a subtle bling, would be these size 11/0 Czech glass seed beads from Etsy seller lanabeads2:

11/0 Czech Glass Seed Beads in Taupe, available on Etsy here

Have I inspired you to start a new project yet?  Here are a few patterns that would be beautiful in this color palette: 

Love Entwined, Historic Reproduction by Esther Aliu, pattern available here

Like the F. Schumacher inspiration fabric, Esther Aliu's masterpiece historic reproduction pattern "Love Entwined" was based on an 18th century antique quilt, so I'd expect it would look amazing rendered in the updated Carbon & Multi colorway of the linen drapery fabric.

However, this color palette would also be delightful for one of Sarah Fiehke's whimsical applique patterns such as her 2017 Down the Rabbit Hole BOM, for which patterns and instructions are available here:

Down the Rabbit Hole by Sarah Fielke, pattern available here

Ooh, and imagine using this color palette for Karen Kay Buckley's Majestic Mosaic appliqué quilt, pattern available on Amazon here:

Majestic Mosaic by Karen Kay Buckley, pattern available here

One last peek at our inspiration photo:

There are a lot of books and workshops out there on color theory, but you really can't go wrong if you choose your color palette based on a mix of colors that speaks to you immediately as soon as you see it.  Interior design photos, fine art paintings, travel photos -- all are terrific sources for selecting colors for your next quilt.  

Where do YOU find your best design inspiration?  Let me know in the comments.

Meanwhile, there are a bazillion coral-colored Birds in the Air blocks waiting for me to sew them together for my Spirit Song quilt...

Still In Progress, my Spirit Song Dress Code Quilt

Happy weekend and happy stitching, everyone!  I'm linking up today's post with:

·       Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts  

·       Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

·       Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

·       Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

·       Moving it Forward at Em's Scrap Bag

·       Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at Clever Chameleon

Spirit Song Challenge: Can I Turn Easter Eggs Into a Pumpkin Spiced Latte for Thanksgiving? Also, I Have Nothing to Wear to Church This Sunday.

It has been awhile since I've had the luxury of sewing for relaxation, for myself, without any deadlines or external demands.  You guys -- this is so much FUN!  I snuck back up to my studio after dinner last night, thinking I'd just putter around for 30 minutes or so, and before I knew it, it was after eleven.  

These are all 4" Birds In the Air blocks right now, nothing is joined together.  I'm still deciding if I like the mix, adding in new fabrics, and rearranging the blocks on the wall.  Although this is a scrappy quilt, I suppose it's kind of a color study, exploring the possibilities of the Pink/Peach/Coral/Orange dress code palette.  By the way, this is my church choir's dress code again for this Sunday morning, November 24th, and we are still in the icy clutches of a cold snap.  Pink, peach, and coral with khaki is so much easier to find in spring and summer clothing than it is for fall and winter.  Where am I supposed to find something in these Easter egg colors that is WARM?!  Maybe that's why I'm mixing in the deeper caramels and butterscotch hues here and there, to tweak this spring color palette to better suit the week before Thanksgiving.  This is quilting alchemy at its finest, folks.  I'm trying to turn Easter eggs into a pumpkin spiced latte.

Completed Blocks as of Late Last Night

I planned the mix of colors and prints I wanted to use in a very rough, approximate way in EQ8 before I started cutting fabric, but I was choosing from random fabric images in the software that I may or may not have in my actual stash, just to get an idea of the look I'm going for.  So, as I'm choosing my fabrics and evaluating what I see on the wall in front of me, I keep referring back to this 8" x 10" image of my quilt design that I printed out from EQ:

Software-Generated Design

Somehow, a fair amount of purple snuck into my EQ8 design, likely pink prints that had enough blue or purple in them to read purplish from a distance.  Normally I wouldn't think of putting these lavender shades in a quilt that was predominantly pumpkin, caramel, orange and pink, but it adds some interesting sparkle, don't you think?  

I've made a glorious mess of my studio, pulling out all of these different fabrics and putting nothing away, but I might take a break from this to make another block for Anders' sampler quilt, or to load something up on the longarm machine.

If any of you has seen a pink/peach/coral sweater or sweater dress in a chain store recently, please let me know in the comments.  I have no idea what I'm wearing to church this Sunday!

I'm linking today's post with:

TUESDAY

·       Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at Clever Chameleon

WEDNESDAY

·       Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

THURSDAY

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·       Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

Kaffe Fassett Mediterranean Hexagons Colour Workshop Recap

I took a workshop with Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably last week!  The project was the Mediterranean Hexagons quilt from the book Kaffe Fassett's Quilts in Morocco, available on Amazon here (affiliate link).

Brandon Mably and Rebecca the Rebellious Workshop Student

I'm going to start with a quick synopsis so those of you who are crunched for time can just skim through the pictures and be done with it: 

Everyone loved this workshop except me.  

Seriously -- no fault of Kaffe and Brandon whatsoever; they were delightful.  I was miserable.  I couldn't follow directions.  I wasted a lot of money and -- worse! -- I wasted a lot of FABRIC.  But Brandon was nice to me, and I learned to read the workshop description first before stampeding to the front of the line to sign up for a class next time.  By the way, just because I didn't enjoy the class doesn't mean I wouldn't recommend it to others.  If you have a small hoard of fabulous Kaffe Fassett prints in your stash that you just don't know how to use in a quilt, or if you tend to stay in your comfort zone when it comes to color and you want to learn how Kaffe puts his fabulous combinations together, you would LOVE this workshop.  Kaffe and Brandon are delightfully entertaining and I swear I was the only person in the room who was feeling stifled.

Original Mediterranean Hexagons Quilt from the book, made by Judy Baldwin

I shouldn't have signed up for this class in the first place, since it was all about learning how to imitate Kaffe Fassett's color and design style.  I love his fabric designs, but I'm not really interested in making quilts that look like they were designed by someone else.  Also, having worked as an interior designer for 20+ years, I'm used to having to work within a client's parameters as far as how much color and pattern they can live with and which colors they prefer or dislike, but I am NOT used to having anyone walk up while I'm creating a color palette and snatch fabrics right out of my hands or off my design wall...  Honestly, what first attracted me to quilting is that I can put whatever crazy prints and colors together that my little heart desires, without needing anyone else's approval before the project can move forward.  Quilting for me is about total design freedom -- and yet here I was, in a very restrictive class where I had to design a quilt using the same two shapes as everyone else.  Students were instructed to fussy-cut large scale prints from the same color family for their hexagons, and then Kaffe and Brandon helped each student select a wildly different color for their triangle star points that would make their hexagons "glow."  The workshop is ideally suited to anyone who admires the glorious mixes of colors and prints in Kaffe's work, but who doesn't feel confident putting those combinations together on their own.  Although we all brought lots of fabrics to class, the quilt shop sponsoring the event had also stocked the classroom with bolts of fabric from their store that students could shop from to supplement what they'd brought with them, and those were the fabrics available for Kaffe and Brandon to suggest to students whose fabrics from home weren't wowing them once they were cut up and positioned on the design wall.

Kaffe Fassett Explaining to the Class Why He Hates My Project

Okay, so Kaffe didn't REALLY tell the whole class that he hated my project, but he was definitely frustrated with me for Willfully Failing to Follow Directions.  He said my hexagon fabrics were not all the same color family as instructed; rather they were all the same MOOD.  And I knew that; every fiber of my being was resisting the conformity of using the same fabrics/colors/design concept as everyone else in the class.  When I rooted through my stash to decide which fabrics to bring, I was mostly drawn to some Anna Maria Horner prints that meshed with the Melancholy Autumn vibe I was feeling that day.  And whereas most of the students in the Kaffe Fassett workshop were using Kaffe Fassett Collectives fabrics, I deliberately chose different fabrics so my project wouldn't look like everyone else's.  However, the fabrics I'd selected for my star points were all VETOED by Kaffe.  And then I ran into the dilemma of being halfway through an all-day workshop, with no fabrics that I liked for the star points among what I'd brought from home, yet none of the fabrics lined up in bolts in the classroom was doing it for me, either.  

Students Working With Kaffe Fabric Prints Had the Most Options for Coordinating Fabrics

There was nothing in that conference room that looked amazing with my "moody" hexagons -- all of the fabrics that were brought in for the class were too bright and cheerful.  So I ended up settling for these ugly dark teal batiks that you see in the photo above...  And since they are about the same value as my hexagons, those fabrics (which I had to purchase in class in order to avoid sitting there doing nothing all afternoon) just make the whole think look like a muddy mess.  Blech!  I agree, Kaffe; my project is hideous -- and the whole exercise of cutting up my favorite fabrics just so I can put them up and the wall and THEN decide if I like how it looks?  That feels like the DARK AGES to me!!!  Never again!!  You guys, I butchered so many fabrics in this workshop that are not even going into a quilt now.  What a horrendous waste, especially since some of them are treasured discontinued skus!  I wish I'd had a computer in the class loaded with EQ8 quilt design software (affiliate link) so I could audition fabrics like a sensible 21st century quilter, and only start cutting into fabric (or purchasing additional fabric!) once I was 100% certain I was going to love how everything looked together.

The Digital Workshop Do-Over in EQ8

So today, with a little help from fabulous Matt at EQ Tech Support (he walked me through setting up the quilt layout for the hexagons with star points, which only took about 5 minutes), I decided to give myself a Digital Do-Over for the workshop.  This is what I came up with:

This is the Vibe I Was Going For in Class

This first version is what I was originally aiming for in class.  Kaffe wanted everyone to pick out fabrics for their star points that would "make their hexagons glow," but I wanted to explore what it would look like for my stars to glow and my hexagons to recede instead.  And of course, unlike designing a quilt by chopping up actual fabric to audition it on a wall, once I've set up the quilt layout in EQ8 software I can recolor it over and over again as many times as I want, without wasting any fabric in the process.  It's a LOT easier to change your mind about a fabric that isn't working with the others when you haven't already chopped your yardage up into Swiss cheese.

So here's my second version, which did use mostly Kaffe Fassett Collective prints:

See, I CAN Follow Directions.  I Just Choose Not To!

By the way, these computer renderings are totally to scale, and the fabrics are all to scale as well.  I can rotate them and slide them around to simulate "fussy cutting" a particular flower so it's right in the center of my hexagon, as well.

Version Three, Also Following Directions

See?  I was able to design two quilts that look like they came right out of a Kaffe Fassett book.  But I still like my version with the gold stars better, even if no one else does!

Still My Favorite

If I was actually going to make any of these quilts, I'd have to jazz up some of those hexagons, maybe with some appliqué in some of them or some pieced hexagons made from stripes.  I can actually plop any pieced block design inside my hexagon with EQ8, so I could put stars within stars...  The possibilities are limitless.

Anyway, I'm done with classes and workshops for awhile.  I've got too much of a backlog of unfinished projects, too many ideas swirling around in my own mind, and too many techniques that need to be practiced until they are developed and solidified into skills. 

I'll probably write up an EQ8 tutorial within the next two days, showing how to draw this quilt layout in the software, just for my own future reference so I don't forget, but I've got some other work to get caught up with first.

Meanwhile, I'm linking up with:

MONDAY

·       Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

·       Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

·       Moving it Forward at Em's Scrap Bag

·       BOMs Away Katie Mae Quilts  

TUESDAY

·       Colour and Inspiration Tuesday at Clever Chameleon

WEDNESDAY

·       Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

·       “WOW” WIPs on Wednesday at Esther's Blog

THURSDAY

·       Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation