Grande Scrappy Tiles Blog Hop and Give Away

     Today Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs is releasing her pattern Grande Scrappy Tiles.  I'm participating in a blog hop  along with the others who tested the pattern.

     When I posted on my version of this quilt previously I received a lot of comments on the colours and fabrics which I used.  I decided for todays post to talk a bit about how I chose my fabrics.

    I chose my fabrics intuitively but I'm sure those choices were based on reading I have done and workshops I have taken about colour and fabric.  I recently finished a quilt top from the Pennypatch quilt along with Rachel Houser of Stitched in Colour and although my fabric choices  for that quilt were made almost 2 years ago, I was definitely influenced by Rachel's suggestions for choosing fabrics. If you haven't seen it my finished  quilt top is here.

     The gist of this process is to have two main colours but have more of one than the other. There is probably a formula for figuring out the proportions but I don't know it.  If any of you do please share it.  Then you add an accent or surprise colour and  a neutral.

     I used mostly fabrics I had in my stash.  I started with the reds and then added the blues.  Because I had more variety of saturation (lights and darks) in the blues they became the main colour with the reds becoming a supporting colour.  I chose yellow for the accent and grey for the neutral.  I used range of lights and darks in the reds and blues and the fabrics in the photo that appear to be white have red or blue in them.

Although I didn't think about it at the time, the combination of red, yellow and blue is a Triad of the three primary colours on the  Red Yellow Blue colour wheel.

     Here's a photo of scraps  to give you a close up.  You can see that I used 10 blues, 5 reds, 2 yellows and 4 greys.

Two of the blues are very similar and read the same in the photo.

     I had a lot of fun picking the fabrics for the quilt and now comes the fun part for you.  Cheryl has given me a downloadable copy  of Grande Scrappy Tiles to use in a draw.

To enter the draw leave me a comment saying what your favourite colour combination is. No need to follow me but I would appreciate it if you do.   I'll use the random number generator to pick the winner on Thursday evening.

     You can check out other versions of Grande Scrappy Tiles at Cheryl's blog Meadow Mist Designs.  You'll also find links to purchase the pattern there which is on sale for $6 until July 4th.

   *****  I realize some of you might land here because of the Sea Star pattern give away on  Cheryl's blog.  Sorry no give away here as I've had computer melt down in the last while . Good luck with the give aways on the other blogs.  I hope you win.****

Lisa

     

    

My First Sunday Stash

    Last Saturday was the first day of my local quilt shop's summer sale.   I couldn't go....bummer....because I was at a workshop learning a few things about my camera and photographing quilts....opposite of bummer.  Thanks Scot.  I'll eventually assimilate what you taught us and take stellar photos!    On Monday I figured all the good stuff would be gone but I went to check things out on my lunch break and look  what I found!

     A  beautiful rainbow of organic cotton goodness on sale.

     I snapped up a 1/2 metre of each of the 13 colours in the top row and finished off the bolt of the robins egg blue (about 3 1/2 metres ) because I really love it.  I'm adding these to my ever growing stash of solids.  It's summer time and I'm ready to play.  Linking up to Sunday Stash at Molli Sparkles blog.

Work In Process Wednesday

     I'm participating in the 2015 New Quilt Bloggers  Blog Hop this year!  It's been a whirlwind of activity keeping up with face book posts, emails, blog critiques, and trying to check out the other blogs !  I have however managed to squeeze in some time for sewing.  Here is my take on the Grande Scrappy Tiles quilt pattern that some of us have been testing for Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs.

     I chose bold modern fabrics for this modern pattern and I love how it turned out.  I think it has a lively energy to it and I'm sure I'll have fun quilting it.  Cheryl describes  her pattern as having an improvisational look and seeing it in this picture I have to agree.

      This pattern would make a great group project and I'll recommend it as a bee project for my guilds' comfort quilt program.  It would also be a great beginner  project as the pieces are large and there are not a lot of seams to match.  This was my first time testing a pattern and I really enjoyed the process.  I'm linking up with W.I.P. Wednesday at Freshly Pieced and with Lets Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts.

Goal for June

     I managed to finish my May goal for a year of lovely finishes but I forgot to link it up.  Oh well the important thing is that it is done.  I've been forgetting a lot of things lately .  I think it's because my brain is too full.  One new and exciting thing is that I'm participating in the New Bloggers blog hop.  Lot's to think about there.   I've  also been reading a lot of health and safety stuff at home for work.  I had to cram a lot in there before a test and my brain is also crammed with lace knitting instructions.   I'm taking a series of three classes to make the Japan Sleeves sweater.  This sweater starts with knitting two lace panels that go from the shoulder down the length of the sleeves.  I haven't knitted such complicated lace before and it's been a while since I knitted anything so the going has been pretty slow.  We were given two weeks to knit both panels and block them.  The next class is on Thursday and I'm still plugging away at the second panel.
   

     This picture gives you an idea of how long the panel is.  I actually have to take out a couple of inches because it's a bit too long.  The next picture is a close up of the lace.

          I'm pretty impressed with it myself although I do know how much I struggled with it.  At one point I thought I might have to pay someone to knit these panels for me.  I figure this first panel is worth over $100 in my time.  It's a good thing the second one is going quicker.

     But this post is supposed to be about my June goal for a year of lovely finishes.  I'm planning to turn this pile of fabric into a quilt top.

     It's Grande Scrappy Tiles, a pattern I am testing for Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs.  I've got one plus blocks together already.  I'm hoping to finish it up on the weekend.

I'm linking up with the goal setting link up at Fibre of All Sorts,  and with Let's Bee Social .