Cosy Cabins. Or should that be Crazy Cabins? There’s Cabin Fever at Clever Chameleon this week and the cat is off his nut.
The monthly exercise for the Island Batik Ambassadors this November is “Cosy Cabins – Log Cabin Challenge. Incorporate a log cabin block or log cabin variations into your project“. I was so, so pleased to see this challenge on the list. The log cabin block and its almost endless variations are right on top of my favourites list. And among the fabrics given to me to work with as an Island Batik Ambassador were these.
Beautiful, beautiful blue fabrics, including pre-cut strips, from a recent Island Batik line called “London Fog”. And I thought…. “Finally, I will make a quilt for me! My colours, my favourite block. All mine!”
hahahahahaha. I am a maestra of changing my mind. A symphony of ideas without a conductor. The only way this would have played out that way was if it had been my last idea, not the first……
So. I am not using these fabrics. And I am not making a quilt for me. Not. even. close.
Instead, I am using Paisley Dots 10″ square precuts, also given to me for use as an Island Batik Ambassador.
And I am working on a brand new design for a kids’ quilt. At least I would be, if it wasn’t for all the help I’ve been getting…….
It’s the last day of the Spring 2018 Art with Fabric blog hop, and my turn to show you my quilt interpretation of the hop theme “1+1=3”.
What does “1+1=3” mean to you and how would you quilt it? My first thoughts were to produce a set of quirky critters that captured the essence of a young family. But May has been seriously crazy and I had neither the time nor energy in the end to whip up such a pattern from scratch.
The other connotation I was strongly drawn to was the mathematical impossibility of the “1+1=3” statement. And this led me down the path of optical illusions and the deliberate act of placing shapes and colours such that the brain sees things that don’t exist. So that is what I have explored.
I ended up with this mini quilt, which I have called Illusions of Christmas.
Let me tell you more about this little quilt, the inspiration source and how it came about.
Psst…… If the green pieces in this quilt look square and straight to you then the illusion isn’t evident. If this is the case and you want to see the illusion right now, get out of your seat and stand back from your screen. When you are too close to the quilt your eyes are not fooled into seeing what is not there.
Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there He wasn’t there again today I wish, I wish he’d go away…
(Hughes Mearns, public domain)
Vanuatu Turtle Quilt: Design process, warts and all.
In the last few days I have finally had a chance to get back into the sewing room. And I have to admit it was very therapeutic. I have missed sewing. So has our cat. I swear he is addicted as I am!
My goal this week was to design and sew the blocks for my black, white and red Vanuatu Turtle quilt for the Splash of Color Quilt Along. I started with this basic plan…
And these fabrics…..
If you wish, you can read more about the what and why of my original plans, and see my turtle appliqué pieces all cut, waiting for a quilt top.
So, on Thursday, I started on the quilt top. I looked at my plan. I cut six 6½ squares. And I went off script.
That might be a record, even for me!
Changing my mind….
Firstly, I decided that I wanted to add in a very dark, plain fabric behind the bulk of the turtle appliqué. Plainer than any fabric I have brought home from Vanuatu. I did actually look for a mostly black fabric in Vanuatu, but there wasn’t any to be had.
So, I went hunting among my scraps here at home and found an Australian Aboriginal print in black called Sand Dunes. The Sand Dunes scraps are leftover from the backing of a dear friend’s quilt. It is very soft and colourfast – an amazing piece of fabric to work with. So I added it to the mix. I also found some black 2½” pre-cut strips inherited from another friend. Perfect for extra darkness behind the appliqué.
Changing my mind, again…
Although I had a 5×5 grid drawn up for my colour gradient in the quick diagram above, I had actually intended to do an 8×8 grid of 6″ squares. Some fussy cut whole squares and some pieced squares to get a black and white gradient. That is why I started by cutting 6½ squares of each Vanuatu fabric.
However, I quickly realised that 6″ squares of pinwheels and HSTs in these prints is going to result in a very. busy. quilt. Which would be fine, except that this was supposed to be the background for my appliquéd turtle. And it was also going to take waaaay too long to construct.
So, I decided that my mockup was trying to tell me something – that I should have 5×5 8″ finished blocks. I cut some new 8½” squares, and recycled the 6½” squares into 8½ squares by adding 2½” strips on two sides. This had the added bonus of being an easy way to graduate through colour values and tie the blocks together visually.
And again…
As I started on the more intricately pieced blocks, I decided that I needed some more solid or solid-like fabrics. Specifically in the grey range. Somewhere for the eyes to rest from the prints. I had already included a blue-grey hand-dye and a white solid in my original fabric choices. Now I added two grey Shadow Play fabrics from my scraps. I only had enough of the dark grey Shadow Play for 4 pieces. But that is half the fun, making do. 🙂
And again…
At this point it was time for me to head out to the South Australian Quilters’ Guild evening meeting. I’m glad I got this far before I had to go, because I was beginning to heed the little voice that said I needed to add a nearly white fabric. There were no nearly white fabrics in Vanuatu, just as there were no nearly black ones. I had thought that I might get by with fussy cutting. Or using the reverse side of a fabric. But…
At the Guild meetings there is always a shop stall, and in the end I picked up something to round out my fabric choices. Actually I picked up two somethings. One was a white fabric with a fine black print. It had slightly more black than I wanted, but it was the best pick available. I was happy at least that the swirls on the print are consistent with the patterns already in my quilt. 🙂 The second purchase was a fat quarter of a dark blue-grey Grunge that happens to be the exact same colour as the blue grey on two of the Vanuatu fabrics. Score!
Finishing off the design
A little more playing and switching fabrics around and I settled on this layout (with a few more tweaks as I sewed).
And now I have finished sewing up the 8½” blocks for my Vanuatu Turtle quilt. They are ready to be assembled into a quilt top and have borders attached.
So, how am I feeling? Well, I really love this quilt top so far. I think the design is actually quite effective as it is. A small part of me even thinks that I should claim the grey-blue as my “Splash of Color” and leave it really simple. Because there is a whisper of a question in my head as to whether it will marry well with my appliqué. Despite all the changes I have made, it is still very busy.
But the whole point of this quilt is the turtle appliqué….. And if I stop now this quilt top will be too small to be particularly useful, and my turtle appliqué will be orphaned. So I will push on. If, in the end, it isn’t as fantastic as I envisioned, then I won’t mind it going on the couch, right?! And there is always something to be learned in quilts that don’t quite make it to awesome. Fingers crossed that I am just over analysing things and it will be just fine!
If you are also participating in the Splash of Color Quilt Along I hope that you are pleased with your progress so far. If you like black and white quilts and haven’t been over and checked out the progress of the other projects yet, be sure to do that. Everyone has chosen their own project, so this QAL is very interesting, even as a spectator sport. 🙂
P.S. Colour Inspiration Tuesday resumes here tomorrow! Yay!
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Colour resources for your next eye-catching quilt design
“Halo” and “Welkam” to my second Vanuatu edition of Colour Inspiration Tuesday! Actually it is a combined Colour Inspiration Tuesday and Everyday Quilt Inspiration post. Like last week’s regular slots, this post was largely pre-written in Australia due to uncertainty about how much time and internet I would have for blogging here in Vanuatu. But I have added some extra material to make this post also fit the 31 Days writing challenge I am doing. I hope it gels ok.
“Halo” and “Welkam” is pretty much the extent of my knowledge of the Bislama language. And “Tangkyu tumas” (Thank you very much). But thankfully English usually suffices here, the Vanuatu scenery is beautiful, and this week, the weather is superb. Just like today’s quilt inspiration colour board, Silhouettes at Sunset.
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Silhouettes at Sunset
The “Silhouettes at Sunset” colour scheme is purple, orange, peach, grey, aqua, teal and super dark teal. Isn’t it amazing how the form of a dark silhouette brings out the colours in a sunset? This contrast is something that we should be aiming for in our quilt fabric choices too….. that is if you are after a bold, brilliant effect. (I am fully cognisant that sometimes subtle and low volume is the right choice for a quilt too…. I just personally usually prefer bright.) And isn’t it nice to be reminded that silhouettes don’t have to be black… any high contrast will be effective, in this case a dark shade of teal.
Silhouettes at Sunset evokes thoughts of warm tropical evenings and beach holidays. Perfect to celebrate a trip to Vanuatu, even if it is for work. Would you like to know more about the humanitarian telecommunications side of our family’s pursuits? When things get back to normal I would love to tell you more.
Anyway, back to the task at hand…. It strikes me that “Silhouettes at Sunset” is very much like the love child of “Sunset Wall” and “Another World Blue”. Two colour schemes from earlier editions of Colour Inspiration Tuesday.
So for my Colour Inspiration Tuesday quilt imaginings this week I have decided to see what happens when we colour the Cat on a Wall quilt design with the Silhouettes at Sunset colour scheme. Here is the original design in both parent colour ways.
And here are my new colourings. I also added in an eighth colour from the sunset photo – a rose pink. I only meant to do one re-colouring of Cat on a Wall, but I had to amuse myself on the plane to Vanuatu somehow!
Which do you prefer? One of the new ones or one of the originals? Or would you choose a completely different colour scheme for this quilt? Please tell in the comments below. 🙂
Credit
I really appreciate the talented photographers who generously donate their art to the world without strings attached. Today’s such photos are from Unsplash.com. Unsplash is a collection of free, high resolution, “do what you want with” photos. Credit is not demanded but I give it anyway in thanks. Today’s featured photographer is Aldain Austria. Be sure to check out his collection of photos on Unsplash.
I hope you will tell me which your preferred colours are….
Before I go though, I had better add in some everyday quilt inspiration. This one is easy – there have been many “sunset and silhouettes” moments in my life that I have thought at the time would make great art. We are fortunate in Adelaide to get lots of great sunsets over the gulf.I distinctly remember one such moment when I was heavily pregnant with my second child. I was sitting on the beach, watching my husband and eldest daughter (2 years at the time) jump the wavelets, silhouetted against the setting sun. That is a moment that would definitely be quilt-worthy.
Anyway, here are some more recent silhouettes at sunset. These were taken the second night we arrived here in Port Vila.
And to finish off – your everyday colour inspiration board…..
See you for more Everyday Quilt Inspiration fun tomorrow. In the meantime, if you haven’t been following along, you can find the start of this series here.
P.S. On a completely different topic, I must tell you, the Art with Fabric blog hop is ON! It started yesterday (although that might still be today in your time zone…..) Anyway, my post on the hop is not until Friday 13, but there is a huge lineup ahead of me. Visit Tweety Loves Quilting to see the blog hop from the very beginning.
Here’s a sneak preview of my art piece…. it’s called “Remember to thank the Cleaner (Shrimp)”. It’s art with gratitude. 🙂
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: a free resource of colour combinations to try on your quilts.
Hi – Welcome to another Colour Inspiration Tuesday! When I was first introduced to quilting, the group I met regularly with had a thing about fabrics in rich jewel-tone colours. Specifically, batik collections in saturated turquoise, sapphire, emerald, topaz, magenta and amethyst colours. These were good times, so these colours will always transport me back to the fun afternoons we spent sewing and eating and laughing.
Today’s colour palette was inspired by a photo strong in both geometry and colour. Because the purples, blues and turquoise reminded me of quilts in jewel-tones, we have “Jewel-Tone Triangles”.
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Jewel Tone Triangles
The “Jewel Tone Triangles” colour palette is amethyst, sapphire and turquoise in several shades of each. These varying shades allow you to create depth, interest and even the optical illusion of 3D by using cleverly placed colour value contrasts.
It is very tempting to sit down and design a triangle quilt (or a tumbling block quilt) in these colours, using the colour transitions in the photo as a muse. I shouldn’t, due to time constraints…..
Of course, I did anyway …….. here is a free layout as an example of how you could use this colour palette (with two additional shades over and above the starting seven Jewel Tones) on a tumbling block quilt.
Play with it until you find Your perfect combination. I just did!
I’m even tempted to make this quilt….. I could cut the diamonds with my GO! die. My daughter has spotted this post and said “Ooooo, I’d like that on My Bed”. Not sure that I am going to make it bed-sized, if it happens at all. Perhaps she can aspire to have it on her wall…. I’ll let you know if this one gets to the top of the ideas queue.
Don’t need rich geometry today? Try something more subtle.
There are several gentler colour schemes within the Clever Chameleon collection already….. why not take a look at Lily Pad Glow or Purple Tulip?
Today’s Photo Credit
Today’s stock photo is from Unsplash.com. Unsplash is a collection of free, high resolution, “do what you want with” photos. If you would like to also use this lovely photo, it was provided by Ferdinand Stöhr via Unsplash for license-free usage. Find more of Ferdinand’s photos here: Ferdinand Stöhr
P.S. For your convenience, I have placed all the Unsplash photos from Colour Inspiration Tuesdays in one place. Find them easily for free in my Colour Inspiration Collection.