Colour Inspiration

 On a visit to London a few years back I sat down on a bench in Covemt Garden to rest my weary feet, and this rather quirky colour combination grabbed my attention. Coal, purple, stone, teal... now this was not something I would have thought of combining in a quilt, but I was amazed by how well it worked, and luckily I thought to snap a photo right away. Of course there has been plenty of new inspiration coming my way since then, but when reading about The Blogger Bundle Mosaic over at I'm a Ginger Monkey this image came to mind. Thanks to the palette generator in Big Huge Labs I was able to translate the photo to a set of colours and used that to create my Covent Garden Mosaic of fabric from Pink Castle Fabrics :

I might need to add a few more fabrics to make this work in real life, but on the whole this could make a very pleasing starting point for a new quilt, I think.
The fabrics are: 1. Outfoxed Confetti in Purple, 2. Outfoxed Jewels in Purple, 3. Ruby Star Shining Retro Typewriters in Mustard, 4. Kona Cotton in Stone, 5. In The Kitchen Heath in Chartreuse, 6. Loulouthi Coreopsis in Icicle, 7. Hello Pilgrim Jewels in Turquoise, 8. Truck Stop Dot in Blue, 9. Kona Cotton in Pond, 10. Kona Cotton in Coal, 11. Walk in the Woods Simple Dots in Cloud, 12. Walk in the Woods Circle Stripes in Cloud.

Happy accident

I came across this redwork embroidery in my stash the other day. I stitched it years ago, can't really remember when, but I remember that my intention was to collect some red and white fabrics for a patchwork frame. No time like the present, so I pulled out the red and white fabrics I had so far. Not that many, and the whites were too bright and the general feeling: "OK, but a bit boring".

As I was pulling out fabrics from the red area of my stash, I happened to knock over a pile of fabric that needed to be put back in place, and a green polka dot fabric landed on my redwork. Wow!

A bit happy sorting through fabrics later, and all the red and white pieces were brushed away and I ended up with a solution which said "Yes!" rather than "OK". Now three borders are in place, and I have a new quilt ready for quilting. This combination excites me enough to make sure that I'll finish it this time around. Yes, I like it!

Loopy quilting

It felt good to be quilting again yesterday. I know all the good advice of starting with a practise cloth first if you have been away from it for a while, but I ignored that and jumped right in, and it was OK. I've still got the hang of it. My loops and swirls may be less than perfect at places, but overall the look is quite pleasing, and that's what counts. I'm trying out a soft grey Aurifil cotton for the patterned sections and a darker grey on the blue sections. They both seem to blend in well (except in the red bits), which is just what I'm looking for. I have used a lot of shiny rayon for quilts in the past, but I really like the subtle shine of cotton in this thread. The blue fabric looks like denim, but is a chambray from a local shop. It is almost as thin and soft as the quilting fabrics so it works really well with them.

It's raining sideways today, so all plans of getting washing on the line, going for a long walk or any other outdoorsy stuff have been abandoned, the hoovering was done yesterday, so to sum it up: it is a perfect quilting day!



Behind the Scenes

Yes, there is work going on here, but somehow I haven't been able to get my head together and place words on the screen lately. As I have written about every year since I started blogging, I think, I tend to go into hibernation in February. Somehow the winter just seems too long and cold and bleak at this point, so I have a hard time getting my creative juices going. It is a time for using quilts, rather than making them for me. But now, slowly, slowly I'm getting started again. Some finishes approaching, a new project started and heaps of ironing - who's buying all this fabric? :-D

Yes, Spring is approaching, I can feel it in my bones, and at last there is evidence of it outside as well. Welcome back!