What's Next?

I may be teaching a class in making free-pieced letters early next year, and since I am a visual learner, I want to have examples to show my prospective students.
I had the idea of making a small quilt showing different ways of making letters - completely crazy, and irregular, free pieced but more regular, letters taking advantage of fabrics (fussy cutting), using "fonts" and so on.

I liked the idea. Since I've just finished a big quilt with fairly precise, planned letters, I knew I wanted the first word to be completely relaxed. You may not believe it, but it's kind of tricky to completely let myself go and make totally silly letters.

I love words. If James Lipton ever asked me, "What is your favorite word," my answer would be "Rutabaga." I just like the way it sounds.

I also love color, and pigment names, Alizarin Crimson, Gamboge, Aureolin, Dioxazine, Quinacridone... From there it wasn't a big leap to do words of color.

Actually, I started with: Turquoise, Bordeaux, Alizarin... I was still stuck on wanting to be able to incorporate each of the letters in the alphabet. There aren't many pigment names that use a "J", or even an "F." "P," "K," and "Z" are pretty tough for non-obvious color names.

Turquoise, Bordeaux, Paprika, Saffron, Viridian.... Bordeaux, Cinnabar, Chrome, Phthalocyanine... the list goes on, but it isn't as big as you think. I wanted to use interesting names for each color, but not the stupid paint chip names that have nothing to do with real things.

And I wanted names that people could connect to... so even though I know what color "Chlorinated Copper Phthalocyanine" is, most wouldn't, so that was out.

And -of course- the words couldn't be -obvious- because that would be -boring- and we all know I -hate- boring!

SO!

Turquoise, a blue stone, in completely crazy blue letters.

Aubergine, Eggplant, a purple vegetable, a bit more precisely pieced.

I got to "Aubergine" from "Asparagus," believe it or not. I was halfway through "Bordeaux" when I decided to make "Aubergine" instead. The big bonus was that it was nine letters long! Too funny!

But then.. VERMILION! Another nine-letter word!

Vermilion, a red pigment, with some fussy-pieced letters.

OKAY! Too much fun! The concept of trying to include all the letters in the alphabet flew dramatically out the window, and the idea of nine-letter words that are the color of some pigment, food, spice, fruit or something that is obviously a color was in!

So the next word in the sequence is...

Persimmon.