Teal Teal Teal! (and a little bit of DMV excitement too!)

Believe it or not, it is possible to be excited while in the DMV....

First off may I start by saying that today I sat 4 written driver's licences - yes that's right, 4! (There are a lot when you become a bus driver!) And I am so relieved to say that I passed them all! Tomorrow the fun starts as I get to put all the theory into practice on the real thing. Keep off the roads for the next couple of weeks if you're going to be in NH!!

Onto the topic at hand - the wonderful, beautiful, gorgeous, exciting color of teal! I never used to like teal. Didn't think much about it all actually. Then my quilting friend Anna introduced me new ways of using it and right now I'd say it's in my top 3 favorites along with pink and orange!

Last week I drove by this house for sale and since I was the only one on the road I stopped and took a photo - if we hadn't have just bought a house, I'd be mighty tempted by this one, just for the color alone!

I want to show you one of my very favorite color combinations of all time - teal with purple. The first photo on my post today is a portion of a block I am testing for Anna - sorry I can't show you the whole thing, but you will get the gist of it anyway. I just love the play between the colors. Lots of needleturn applique on this quilt!

Then today I'm standing in line at the grocery store....my 3 kids are tugging at me asking for candy and gum and chips and drinks....the usual....and I see something on the magazine stand that makes my eyes zoom in - you know, like on TV - and I forget the kids and the hustle and bustle of the supermarket, for I have seen....

...teal and Purple! Almost makes we want to go and buy this issue of Glamour magazine, just so I can have the cover for inspiration!

I am now thinking I need to make a teal quilt to go on our bed in our purple bedroom. Then I can have my fav color combo around me all night long!

So it makes me wonder - what are your favorite color combinations? Anything that makes you go aaaahhhh or oooooooo or just feel all tingly inside? I'd love to know what they are - as quilters we are always on the lookout for new combos and ideas :)

Lonestar

Today it's back to quilting!

I thought I'd show you a work in progress, a lonestar. This is the first quilt I've done which is hand-pieced. I usually sew by machine and hand needle-turn the applique, but never have I done actual hand piecing. I was scared - more like terrified! And part of it was being scared that it would be boring! But my friend Anna had done it before and encouraged me and talked me through it. She learnt from quilting superstar Jinny Beyer, so I went to the library, took out Jinny's book and I was off! And guess what I found out? That not only is it NOT boring, but I love it, and it is so fast. Yep you read that right. Hand piecing is fast! Jinny Beyer says she can hand piece faster than she can machine piece. I completely believe her now!


If you look at the closeup of the sections I've done so far (5 done, 3 to go!) you will see, with the exception of the black, that each section has different fabrics. The goal with this is to show how important the concept of value is. You can have totally different fabrics, even different colors, but if they are of the same VALUE, from a distance they will read as the same fabric! It's like magic how that works isn't it?!

Look at the closeup again. You can see that the fabrics are different. Now look at the distance shot. Doesn't it look like I've used the same fabrics for each section?? They can even be a teeny bit different in value - don't be too fussy - it just brings the quilt to life, gives it some interest!

Here are a couple of photos of the design process - to get great value placement I cut and pasted mini diamonds on a piece of paper. This way I could see how the values worked together and where I needed to change/move things around. And you can see I used a mirror to see how 2 sections would work and if the values would still do their jobs - they did, so I went ahead and cut out the 'real' pieces!

So there is my lesson to you for the day on the very important concept of value! Now go play, let go of pre-conceived ideas and have fun - do what YOU want to do with the colors you crave - it's your quilt to love!!

I Love Color!

If you can't tell from the colors on my blog I am one of color's biggest fans! My living room is the tamest room in my house - it is a nice shade of milk chocolate brown.

Our bedroom is purple - and no, not a soft pretty shade of purple, but a deep yet bright...purple!

And our kitchen and hallway....well that is my current non-quilting project. I decided on my hubby's favorite - orange! I have done most of the cutting in, and as always happens, the color is a lot brighter once it's on the walls. So I suppose it's lucky that I love orange so much! Now I have to decide what to do with the lovely 70's fake brick on the back splash and the gorgeous cabinets circa 1973. And all of this must be done on a shoestring budget as we don't have a spare 40K to drop on a new kitchen like they do on all those shows on TV. But that's the fun of it all, right?! For some quilters color is a mystery - some are even scared of it. I know it can be hard to step out of the box of what we know and are used to doing. But I promise you, when you take that step out of that box and try something different, there are big returns! I think the biggest obstacle is wondering what others will think of our choices. Once you fall in love with color and realize that the only person who should love what you do is YOU then it all falls into place and you can experience color-freedom and the peace that comes from pleasing yourself first!

OK Pep-talk over! I must go finish the paint - hopefully I will have finished product photos next post!