Quilt Reveal: Pink and Other Colors

Announcing the first finished quilt of the year, at least here on the High Road. It is a part of Project Quilting challenge, which means it had to be made in a week. I have already told you the inspiration of this quilt in another post.

I started with a pink scrap and added more pink scraps for the stack. I soon realized that I don't use a lot of pink, so I was very liberal in what I considered to be pink, and included reds and purples.

 

The end result looks more purple than pink, but there is pink in there, and maybe when you are looking for the pink you will see that there are lots of other colors in there to meet the challenge guidelines, which is to use at least five different colors.

 

I have been trying to use darker and busier fabrics in my selection of low volume backgrounds, and this quilt gave me the perfect opportunity to do that since most of my "pink" stack were pretty dark. My usual for a challenge like this would have to use a lot of bright colors, like in the Postage Stamp quilt, but the fact that my "other colors" are in the low volume sections makes me very happy.

I decided to make it a bars quilt, and resisted the temptation to make it a checkerboard. The end result was a trapezoid shape and it was tempting to leave it that shape, but I decided to trim it into a rectangle. It is the noon deadline that makes it look like it is not a rectangle.

 

2021: 15 Minutes to Stitch Week 53

So much for weekly challenges, I am already late in posting my 15 Minutes to Stitch Report.  There was a flurry of quilting activity the last week of the year. Besides making and finishing Get Well Wishes for the World, I also posted a lot of year-end reports.

15 minute days this week --5 out of 5

15 minute days this year -- 300 out of 365 days

Success rate  = 82%

 

I finished at 84% in 2020.

2022: 15 Minutes to Stitch Weeks 1 and 2

This year, I would like to have noticeably more finishes than starts, and starting a new quilt is probably not the best way to get that result. But the Project Quilting challenge is posted, and since it forces you to finish a quilt in a week, it won't be counter-productive to that goal. As you saw at the top of this post, I finished the Pink and Other Colors this week.

15 minute days this week --9 out of 9

15 minute days this year -- 9 out of 9 days

Success rate  = 100%

Linked with:

15 Minutes to Stitch

Oh Scrap! 

Needle and Thread Thursday

Filling the Work in Process Drawers

There are five drawers in my new WIP cabinet and I am trying to figure out what to put in them. In no particular order, but numbered for clarity, here is how they will be filled:

Drawer One will be for the current Work in Progress. Right now, it is the Postage Stamp quilt.

Drawer Two will be for the current Leader / Ender. Right now, it is the Dots and Dashes quilt. Even though this is the current Leader / Ender, I am using Postage Stamp quilt as a Leader / Ender while working on my mini quilt.

Drawer Three will be for the Current Mini of the Month. I rarely work on more than one of these at a time, and when I do, I think there is room in the drawer for more than one. This drawer will probably be empty most of the time, since the work will probably be on the table, but I have to leave it empty for when I have to clean up my space. The current Mini is Pink and Other Colors.

 

Drawer Four will be for the Beautiful World project. I haven't worked on it since March.  Is this the UFO drawer or the handwork drawer, I'm not sure. It will identify itself in time.

While it is tempting to find another project for Drawer Five, I am opting to leave it empty. It will help make sure I can truly convert my sewing room back into a living room without having to put anything out of sight and out of mind.

In Progress: Pink and Other Colors

On Sunday, I attended an introduction to Sherri Lynn Wood's Abstract Piecing Scrap Play workshop, The replay is available for free. There was an introduction of the series' speakers and some good conversation about abstract piecing, using value to your advantage, and creating order out of scraps. 

I've worked with Sherri Lynn before, testing a pattern in her book, so I didn't learn anything new, but it was really helpful to have things explained in a different way, because sometimes I need to hear things more than once to really get it. My main takeaways were to sort your scraps into like items - mostly by color and value. So light blue and dark blue, light green and dark green. It really helps bring order to the chaos of a scrap box. Then you can choose which stacks to combine.

The change is that instead of calling it improv, she is calling it abstract piecing. I think this change of terminology will really help, because sometimes it feels like improv should be spontaneous. At the end of my last project, I was thinking I shouldn't plan too much, and wound up with a spot where there was too much dark. Calling it abstract helps to see that the piecing is very intentional. You keep making decisions as you add each piece.

The other thing she said was that when you are finished, you should take the time to think about the project. She asked us to share a surprise, discovery, satisfaction, or challenge in our work. This takes things deeper so that you can articulate what you discovered, and hopefully this can help you take something when you work on your next project.

I cheated and didn't sort all of my fabrics, but I did choose pink fabrics and low volumes to make my practice play project.

 

 

As I was writing my end of the year recap, I noticed how many of my projects were a part of the Project Quilting Challenge. The weekly deadline really helps push through any doubts and hesitations. Just get it done! So when I saw that the challenge has started again, I want to participate as much as I can.

This week's Project Quilting Challenge is All the Colors. 

I am combining both of these projects and hopefully will have something to show you by Sunday.