Happy Fall

Various pictures of the season. There's color inspiration everywhere. The transparency samples are not an autumn colorway, but they are what I'm working with right now. I love seeing how the different backgrounds make the colors change.

True Colors Class by Carol Soderlund

Here's my first picture from the class I took earlier this month at Pro Chemical & Dye. It shows a series of skinny quarters, each with an increasing number of layers and colors of dye. The last two have the same number of layers, but the top one was folded twice as much. Loved this class!

Back from the Barn!

Last week I was privileged to attend Carol Soderlund's  Neutral Territory class at Nancy Crow's Art Barn retreats. With the work of our fabulous group of 15 artists choreographed by Carol, we came home with hundreds of samples of ways to mix three (or four) colors together. The results include a great palette of blacks, browns, greens, blues, greys, purples, umbers, ochers and reds. And we did one bright and sassy 12-step color wheel and shaded it with black. Altogether over 600 new samples - with no duplicates! In addition, Carol taught us a new sampling technique and provided great tools for doing the sampling.
Now I'm home and I'm still trying to get the right colors for a client. Great time to use what I've learned! Above is a picture of the washout step of a yellow shaded with two different amounts of black, and each color is done in six values. Two down - 94 cups to go! And as much fun as I find that, there's still business chores and household chores to be done. Rather than whine about that, I will sign off and go 'Git'r'Done.'

My Guest Blogger - Nan Baker

This week brings a new wrinkle to this blog - a guest blogger. Please enjoy the post, and learn more about her at the end. Thanks for writing, Nan!

Color Your World by Nan Baker

One of the most exciting things about starting school was getting a new box of crayons. Opening the box and seeing all those gorgeous colors was such a treat. I could hardly wait to use them.
Now I will admit, I much preferred a coloring book (and yes I colored inside the lines) instead of a blank sheet of paper. In fact, a blank sheet of paper absolutely scared me to death. What would I put on it? I needed lines and I felt safe when I had them. (I still do to this day – I use graph paper.)
It was always fun to pick out my favorite colors with the crayons. I would go towards the yellows, oranges (fall colors and they are still my favorites today). Isn't it interesting how a little box of crayons can say so much about how colors will play in your life? At least that is the way it has been for me.
As quilters, colors play such an important part, yet they can be very intimidating. Now I will admit, I am not an art major, but I do have an eye for color. At least that is what I have been told over and over by some art majors. Yet even with an eye for color, it is still sometimes very difficult to pick out those "purrfect" colors for a quilt.
There are some wonderful books on the subject and I have several. One is by Maria Peagler called Color Mastery:10 Principles for Creating Stunning Quilts and another is Color Confidence for Quilters by Jinny Beyer. These books have proved to be very helpful in understanding and choosing colors.
I also have a color wheel which has proved to be very beneficial.
However, I must admit that sometimes I see a piece of fabric and it just calls my name. That happened to me when I was making my first pair of drapes for my new home. I walked in the shop and on one of the front rows – there it was! I looked no further – I knew I had to have it. Those drapes hung in two houses and I never grew tired of them. I even kept some leftover fabric and made a quilt. I pulled colors from the fabric that coordinated and I am pleased with the results. The pattern is from 9-Patch Pizzazz by Judy Sisneros.
Now I have another small piece of fabric - not even a FQ - and the colors just make me happy. I don't even know where this fabric came from. It was a scrap in my stash. Since I don't have enough for a quilt, I am going to pull colors from it that will coordinate to create my masterpiece. I don't even have a design in mind, but I know these colors will work beautifully together as they do so in the lovely fabric.
Again I am not an expert, but when you can't decide what colors to use in a quilt, consult a book or two for some basics and guidelines. If you are still not sure, find a piece of fabric that you like and pull from the colors there to help create your work of art.
Then if you are still not satisfied and can't find the right fabric, check with Lisa as she just may have what you need. Thank you Lisa for letting me be a Guest Blogger. I am pleased and honored.

---

Nan Baker is the CEO and Designer for Purrfect Spots, a company where quilts, needlework and animals are loved. Her designs have appeared in numerous publications including The Quilt Pattern Magazine, Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks, QuiltsandCreativity.com and on QNNtv.com. Visit her website at www.purrfectspots.com and her blog at www.purrfectspots.blogspot.com. Nan is also the Marketing Director for The Quilt Pattern Magazine.

A show catalog in the mail

I went to the PO box today, hoping to pick up a check. That wasn’t there, but I got something even better – a catalog for a solo show by Kate Stiassni at The White Gallery. (She has pictures of most of the quilts on her Portfolio page.) When I dye solid fabrics, it almost always is for her. Her show continues until January 27. Yay, Kate!

New SnowDyed fabrics

The recent talk on MXDyers made me pull out the screens again. Not everything is washed yet, and some of these fabrics were dyed in July and never photographed.  We had great weather for it on Friday – the highs barely reached 60, so the ice didn’t melt as fast as it did in July. Anyhow, time for pictures! You should be able to click any of these to see larger images. Thanks for looking!

A square section of a longer piece of yardage.
The rest of these were dyed as square pieces, with fan-folds, 6- and 8-pointed folds, a couple spirals for fun, plus a square fold that I learned from Elin Noble.

There are some dark lines in the lower left corner of this piece. They are the result of letting the fabric dry with out washing it out. The blue dye, being the slowest to strike, wicked up to the top of the folds and bonded there. Not snow-dyeing in its purest form, but it adds to the fabric surface.

Above is the square fold. As you see, it was folded in half to start, so the left side is much lighter than the right. Not super-successful, but could be very interesting cut and pieced.

I was really thrilled when I unfolded this. I was afraid there was too much white in it, but it looks like a whole-cloth quilt to me.

Relative color / value

If I do this right, a picture puzzle will appear. It is a good illustration of how color appears to change depending on the colors it is near. Assemble this puzzle, but don't place one of the blue pieces that goes into one of the right-hand corners. Before you finish, hold the piece and slide it over the other blue areas. It  should look like the moving piece is changing color, because the background is changing. Interesting, I think.