Christine's Color Connection
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A Newsletter for quilters in love with color
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A New Look for My Newsletter
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Welcome, spring! In addition to spring cleaning and multiple trips to thrift stores to let go of things that "don't give me joy," I decided it was time for a newsletter makeover. And thanks to the nice people (young, of course) at Constant Contact, you're seeing it now. So without further ado, let me show you how I audition oversized units for blocks like the ones in my
"Urban Sunsets" quilt.
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I'm now on
Instagram—yay!—and I hope you'll want to follow me there. The Instagram button and my other social media buttons are at the end of this newsletter. I love Instagram—I'm see so much creative energy, and I learn about new artists in the quilt world and beyond. Like Pinterest, it's
addictive!
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Auditioning and Trimming Design Units
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OK, back to the purpose of this post: When I create center units that will be surrounded by outer strips, as I did with my "Urban Sunsets" blocks, I make the units larger than needed to allow me to preview and choose the area to feature. They also need to be longer because the B&W "swizzle sticks" are inserted at an angle, making the unit somewhat wonky. What follows are three center units for a table runner. (Note: You'll find the measurements in the "Urban Sunsets"
pattern; in my Store; scroll down past the fabrics.)
When possible, I cut the fabric sections roughly the same length and a little longer than necessary to yield "slivers" of leftovers. (More about them later.) In the unit below, I had very little of the hand-dye on the left, so that section is shorter.
The stripes in all of the units are by Kaffe Fassett. Below, the left and center fabrics are by Elin Noble.
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I had the same issue with this unit—not very much of the hand-dye, by Linda mcLaughlin, on the right. The left fabric is Alison Glass.
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The following unit was a challenge because the hand-dye on the right (with the blue-gray circles) is medium dark, and I wasn't sure it would contrast enough with the gray ombré. That's something to think about when making these blocks: will the right and left fabrics in the center unit contrast with their adjacent gray strips, or will they blend, something I
don't want.
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Now to the auditioning and trimming. First I cut a window from card stock or other lightweight cardboard to the desired size of the center units, then move the window around to preview the possibilities. In this example, I'm showing a bit more of the hand-dye than the teal batik;
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Next I move the preview window to the right, to feature more of the teal batik.
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There's another option: turn the unit 180 degrees. In this example, more of the teal batik shows
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And here I've shifted the window to reveal more of the hand-dye on the right. This is the option I settled on. I mark the corners with chalk, then use the lines on my mat to trim the units.
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Confession: I forgot to take a shot of the previous unit after trimming, so here's another unit. Aren't the top and bottom "leftovers" wonderful? They will be trimmed and turned into yummy accents of color in another project. I save the trimmings on the left and right edges, too; you never know. . . .
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The three units trimmed. (It was a dark and stormy day when I took this, so they look richer than they actually are.)
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Just for fun, two "beauty shots" of the trimmed units. I had to play with them—they're like fabric desserts..
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The finished blocks . . .
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You can see in the block below that I rotated the center unit so the hand-dye is now on the left. That's because the
Marcia Derse fabric (now on the right) blended too much with the dark gray strip, but contrasts nicely with the light gray strip.
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Below is a fourth block, and I love it because the color story is so different from the first three blocks. I may set aside the third block, above, and place this block between the other two to make a three-block table runner.
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Just for fun, here's a pic of trimmings from the blocks. I see potential . . . :-)
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I'll show the finished table runner in a future post. I plan to quilt it in closely spaced parallel lines, much like my "Urban Poppies Table Runner" (quilting instructions are included in the
pattern). I love these small projects; they give us a sense of satisfaction—and a welcome break from making a queen-size quilt!
Thanks for reading and looking at my latest project.
Play with color today, in honor of
National Quilt Day!
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My book,
The Quilter's Color Club,
has lots of info on every aspect of color. You can get it as a print-on-demand book or e-book (the color is stunning in the e-book) from
C&T Publishing.
You can sometimes find used copies on Amazon.
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Contact Info
Christine Barnes
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