Saturday, September 1, 2012

August Color Palette Challenge

I'll tell you, I'm really enjoying this Color Palette Challenge that Judy has invented for us. I knew I couldn't make a whole quilt or even a big project each month so I chose a fun block from the great book "Knockout Blocks and Sampler Quilts" by Judy Martin. The blocks in this book are really original and it's fun to make this block each month out of my stash with the palette colors. I plan to make them into a quilt at the end of the year.

I have to say, I was not thoroughly fond of this month's colors as they read "muddy" to me and I tend to like clear, bright colors. But along with all the other blocks, they totally work--and, I learn a lot about my preconceived notions about what I THINK I like. August's block is in the lower left in this photo.


Sunday, August 26, 2012

Delightful Dresden

Several months ago on the Bunny Hill site, Anne Sutton shared her method of using Darlene Zimmerman's fun and easy Dresden Ruler to make these wonderful blocks. I looked for this ruler for months (I like to buy at quilt shops if I can) and finally found one. These blocks were so fun and easy to make with charm packs (of which I have more than I want to admit--it's a sickness). Each charm square makes 2 'blades' and you need 20 blades for each block. I used 40 charms from a Kaffe Facett charm pack and it went really fast.

Those circles in the center cover up the 'raw edges' of the blades and aren't sewn down yet as I'm auditioning colors, so they look a little crooked.

I might make this could be made into a long table runner for our new dining room table or a 2 X 2 configuration for a cute wall hanging (I'm kind of liking that interesting design in the 'negative space' in the center).  Either way, I'm going to title it "Dresden Kaffe". I auditioned several backgrounds and liked dark shades best.

--OK, it's Sunday night and I've made some great progress on this project--officially a tablerunner.
 What do you think about the background I chose? I wanted every piece to be Kaffe's fabric and I wanted it to be really "busy" and sort of "muddled".

I chose a purple binding (it isn't sewn down yet so looks a little wonky) but when I do, it will look great on our new dining room table!


You just have to try these Dresden Plates! Also try the other creative blogs on Judy's Design Wall Monday!