Color of the Year 2021

 I always look forward to the announcement of Pantone's color of the year. This year's colors really resonated with me...

Illuminating and Ultimate Gray. Both beautiful, separately and together. In fact, I have decorated my guest bedroom and bath in these colors. So it felt good to dive in and use them together in a small quilt. Small because the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild will be displaying them in the display case at the library again this year, as we did in 2019.

I actually made my quilt several months ago. After I pattern tested my friend Jane (Twiggy and Opal)'s Sparkle quilt, I decided to make a much tinier, two color version as a personal challenge. I used Kona Bright Idea (Illuminating) and Kona Overcast (Ultimate Gray) and made this 12" version of Sparkle...

Today it heads off to the library display. I hope to get up there sometime this month to see all of the quilts from our guild.

Have you made anything with this year's colors of the year?

Paint Palette

 

My first quilt for the #ThroughEllyn'sEyes project is finished and I must say I'm happy with it and excited to move on to my next idea. I'm calling this one Paint Palette. After selecting my color palette, I wanted to create a piece that explores how the colors respond to black background and white background. I love the way the colors seem to change with different backgrounds. The design I came up with reminds me of a watercolor palette, so Paint Palette it is. I'm excited to use this color study as I move forward in my project.

I quilted it with a silver gray thread in a simple grid on my domestic machine (Janome 6600), and used a faced binding to finish it off. I think a matched binding would have been great too, and I wavered back and forth before settling on this. The quilt finishes at 26" x 22".

After it was quilted and bound, I added some small hand stitches with size 8 and size 12 pearl cottons. I've really enjoyed these little touches in my recent finishes.

some Xs in red

Orange Xs and straight stitches in yellow

and teal straight stitches

It's been fun collecting pearl cottons to match my colors.... although I'm having a hard time finding an appropriate green. I'll keep searching!

So I'm happy to have this completed and to be able to say my project is officially underway! You can follow my progress on Instagram.

variations on Geo Pop

 When my friend Jayne, over at Twiggy and Opal started sharing her Geo Pop pattern in different variations, I decided to see how small I could make one! I pulled out some of my solid scraps and made this citrussy version...

Each block is 1 1/2" finished so the mini finished at 9"x12". pretty small but, of course, Jayne made a smaller one hahaha, which you can check out on her instagram.

Our Improv small group is doing a placemat swap. In August I needed to make a placemat for my friend Anne who had chosen pink and green. I enjoyed making the Geo Pop so much I decided to do a variation of it for Anne...

This one measures 12"x18".  Anne brought me this placemat (my chosen colors are black and white)

I love it! It will be fun to collect different placemats from my friends over the next few months.

Of course I didn't stop there with the Geo Pop quilts. A new great niece was on the way (she has since arrived and her quilt has been delivered). I thought a pink baby sized quilt was in order.

I quilted it with a simple grid on my domestic machine. 

Can you tell I really love this pattern? Jayne really hit it out of the park with this one!

Color of the Year quilts on display

You might remember my color of the year quilts I shared earlier in the year, "mirror image". They were made with the Kona color of the year, Splash, and the Pantone color of the year, Living Coral. I made them as part of a challenge with the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild. Here are most of the other quilts and their makers...

This month the quilts are all hanging in a display case at The Roy and Helen Hall Memorial Public Library in McKinney, TX. Hubby and I went to check it out the other day...

Alice and Catherine, guild members who happen to be sisters, did an extraordinary job putting this display together! In a small space, they included a definition of Modern Quilting, labels that identified the makers and the modern elements displayed, and information about our guild. 

If you're in the area, do stop by and see our display. It will be featured until the end of October.

greenery

It's that time of year again! Time for the Pantone Color of the Year challenge. When I saw Greenery this year, I knew it was a color I was itching to play with.  And the Kona color? Flamingo! I love them both. Our challenge for the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild isn't due until July but I wanted to get mine done in time to enter the challenge over at Bryan House Quilts. You'll want to take a peek at all of the fabulous entries! So much fun.

My original idea for a greenery/flamingo quilt involved more than 600 1 inch half square triangles. Yeah.... no. I abandoned that idea pretty quickly! Then I started sketching these succulents and my mini, Tiny Plants, was born! The challenge for guild was to go outside our box. This is the first time I've totally drawn up an appliqué pattern myself (and yes, the simple shapes lent themselves nicely to my limited drawing skills!)

I made it completely from my stash. My friend Diann has been experimenting with miniaturizing some of her longarm patterns and offered to quilt it for me.... don't you love the fun circles? I do!

I machine blanket stitched the raw edge appliqué.

and added a watering can. My finished mini measures 9" x 24"

Are you playing with Greenery this year?