Thinking Pink

 

July is my birth month, and I have decided that pink is my favorite color, so in July I put my pink quilt, Tickled Pink, on my dining room table. Long time readers know I switch out the quilts on my table every month.

In keeping with the pink July theme, I have put the Pink Panther quilt on the back of the couch, and put the pink pillows out.

I'll be retiring at the end of the summer, so this past weekend, I have been "practicing." Practicing what? 

Doing nothing; with no plan for the day.

Now I was lucky, the house was clean, the bills have been paid, the car is gassed up, and the laundry was done. So I slept late, woke up and decided to work on a crossword puzzle. Then I washed the last window that needed washing and cleaned the mini blind for that window.

I have two tasks to do before I do retire. One is to get a printer that will work wirelessly with my Mac and the other is to replace my cell phone. I'd done my research for the printer, and that is now on order. I'll be returning the work at home setup to the office in the next couple of weeks.

My company has been paying for my cell phone for over 20 years. I can have the number, so that won't change, and because my device is so old, I can keep that too, but I do need to get a new plan. Fortunately I have access to the invoices so I know exactly how much data I use. So one of my goals for the next week or so is to shop for a plan. I have a couple of options, so getting that done will happen in the next few weeks as well.

I offered to cook a meal for my Mom and told her I'd go to her house to cook it, or she could come to my place. I was not at all surprised when she decided to come over. I took this picture after we had a dinner of Korean Short Rib Tacos and homemade frozen yogurt ice cream sandwiches.

A good time was had by all.

July

It's July, and time for the pink table quilt.

   It is a complete coincidence that my morning smoothie of golden mango, raspberries and strawberries coordinates.

Tickled Pink

The Tickled Pink diamond quilt is all finished. I sewed the binding while watching the finals of the tennis at Roland Garros. 

I put the quilt on the table to see what it looks like. When July comes, I'll put an extra leaf in the table so the top will be bigger and more of the quilt will be visible. This looks so pretty and feminine (duh). It will be such a lovely tablescape when the table is set with white dishes and silverware.

I'm also a bowl freak. I found this in the local Home Goods one evening. I had stopped at the grocery store in the same mall for something I needed for a recipe and I thought I'd cruise over to HG to see if they had anything interesting.  As soon as I saw this pink flowered bowl I picked it up and headed toward the cash register. Pink bowls are kinda rare.

Binding

I've been neglecting sewing the binding on the Tickled Pink diamonds quilt, so that's what I'll be working on the next few days. After that, I'll add the binding on the Dairy Cream with Sprinkles quilt.

Diamond Quartet

It's no secret I like to work in a series. I like to push an idea around and see where it goes. But it's rare for me to have more than two pieces in the same place at the same time, so when I do, I try to look at them all together, so I can compare them.

For that, I need a big open outside space so I can get far enough away to see them all at once, a fence to hang them on, and preferably, an overcast sky. (An overcast sky means the sun won't bleach out any colors and there will be no shadows.)

Sunday morning I had all three.

From left to right, "Dairy Cream with Sprinkles", "Glorious", "Dark Majesty", and "Tickled Pink".

I looked at them all lined up and thought, "Damn, these are cool."

You can click, and then double click the photos to see more details.

The overcast day means the colors in "Dark Majesty" (below) really show up. Although it is a dark quilt, when you can see it like this with good light, you can really see how colorful it is. Bright colors really glow when set against something dark, and that is exactly the case here.

The fence is along the parking lot of a local clubhouse in my area. While I was taking these pictures, some ladies were working in the building. One lady came out for something and called over to me, "I like the blue one best."  This photo shows why.

"Tickled Pink" really looks good in this light too. There is about 18" of this quilt folded over onto the other side of the fence.

None of these quilts are finished. The pink quilt above has binding sewn along the bottom, but none of the other quilts have been bound.

You'll have to bear with me. I took photos of the quilts hung sideways on the fence so I could get the whole thing, and this picture is rotated so you can see it vertically, which is the way it was designed. But it might be a but disconcerting. This is "Glorious", the collaboration quilt Julie Sefton and I made.

This is "Dairy Cream with Sprinkles."

This is "Tickled Pink."

This is the back of "Tickled Pink." The binding has been attached to the quilt, but only sewn down on the top edge.

It's so interesting to see the subtle variations.



Just a reminder that my diamond quilts are inspired by Pam Goecke Dinndorf's Harlequin Quilt. She sells a pattern for it here.

A Detour

I finished sewing the binding to the Tickled Pink quilt. Now I just have to fold it over and hand sew it down on the front. Yes, I do my final stitching on the front. I was taught how to do it so it doesn't show. If you want to know more about how I do it, click here.

It will be nice just to sit and do some hand sewing.

Tickled Pink Binding

Last weekend when I picked up the Wavelength Quilt, I also picked up Tickled Pink, which Janet-Lee quilted. Isn't it gorgeous?

I selected this fabric for the binding. I like that this fabric had all the colors in the quilt itself, the teal, orange, purple, hot and soft pinks, aqua and blue.

Last night I made the binding, trimmed the quilt and started sewing the binding to the quilt.

Just Add Color

Before I filled in the medium sized diamonds, I threw some of my leftover pink four patch diamonds on top of Dairy Cream just to see if I was heading in the right direction. I thought it was going to be okay. Nothing special, but I have learned not to worry if something is just so-so when I am barely midway through.

However.  After yesterday's post, my friend Mary wrote me, "How does your Mom see subdued colors? Notice how dark and vivid the pink quilt and hers are."

Um yeah. But I hadn't shown anybody the photo above, so although Mary's point was right on the money, I wasn't really worried.

Yesterday New Hampshire was affected by the big snowstorm. We got almost 20" of snow, and I worked from home.  All day.

During one of my breaks, I drifted into the studio and threw some of the colored four patch diamonds on the design wall, to see what they'd look like. They looked pretty good, but I could see I'd want more colors than pink. I chose a green, an orange, a purple and a blue. I'd make four patch diamonds with those.

Here it is really looking good, and it is taken while it was still daylight, so the colors are more true.

A few hours later (dinner, dishes, reading) I had this, and THIS I like a lot. It's not the same as Tickled Pink, but it's going to be lovely. It also reiterates something I said when I finished Tickled Pink three and a half weeks ago:

I have learned something about this quilt, and that is that the TINY diamonds will make or break this design. They - not the large diamonds - are the star of the show.

Knowing that little nugget of information helped me design this quilt.  And it must be a record for me. I started working on this design on Sunday, and as I write this it is Tuesday evening, so 2-1/2 days. It'll take me a week or so to sew it together - I have a trunk show to prepare for - but when I sent a photo to my Mom earlier, she was very happy and said, "It says Spring to me."


Remember you can click the photos to supersize them. That way you can really check out the fabrics I used. One last thing. This quilt was made completely from my stash.

Backing for Tickled Pink

Here's the backing for the Tickled Pink quilt. As you can see it is pieced with a big decorative panel and a couple of my free pieced birds.

All you really need for a backing of a quilt is that it is big enough, with enough extra for your long arm quilter. Yeah, I can measure but it's just easier to lay it out and see.

Yup. I have enough.

I am glad to be finished with this backing. Making quilt backings is my least favorite thing about making a quilt, and it's not because I don't like doing it, it's because there is so much fabric it's just more like quilt wrangling than sewing.

PS, all those points are going away.

A Bird on Pink

Sometimes I get home from work too tired to do much. Last night I fed Millie then sat on the couch to read for a bit before I made dinner. It was past 9 when I finally dragged myself into the sewing studio.  Of course I couldn't do anything until the pink fabric I ordered for the backing of the quilt completed its run through the washer and dryer. 

I decided to use contrasting pink fabric to separate center the bird on the back panel of the quilt.

Here's what it's going to look like on the bottom part of the backing. I'll use the pink backing on each side of the panel, and then I'll do something similar on the top too.

A Little Cleaning Up

It's amazing what you can do in an hour. I didn't have the energy to give the studio the big cleaning it needed, so I set a timer for an hour and started at one end of the room.

I added some pinks to the big decorative panel I ordered. It will be part of the backing for the Tickled Pink quilt.

I made a couple of pink birds.

I like the great big beak on this one, and his pink striped legs!

I spent a lot of time figuring out how to incorporate all these elements in the backing of the Tickled Pink quilt. That wasn't the hard part. It was calculating exactly how much fabric I needed to order that was giving me trouble. Finally I got fed up and ordered a yard or two extra. 

I don't usually prepare the backing of a quilt right after I finish it, and in fact, just before I started, I prepared the backing for the Wavelength quilt. I made it easy on myself on that one and ordered some "quilt backing" at 108" wide.


If you would like to make your own free pieced birds, you can get  my bird tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

Tickled Pink!

The "Tickled Pink" flimsy is complete. Yeah, I'd say this tickles my fancy but good. As it is, it measures 72" wide by 98" tall.

I have learned something about this quilt, and that is that the TINY diamonds will make or break this design. They - not the large diamonds - are the star of the show.

The colored ones determine how brightly the quilt sings, so there needs to be good contrast with the "main" color. So in this pink quilt the tiny diamonds had to be bright turquoise, blue, deep purple and bright green.

 The "background" tiny diamonds need to blend with the "main" color of the quilt, they shouldn't stick out too much, but they shouldn't be monotonous either. And they shouldn't be "dull". The most successful background prints, in my opinion, were the ones with a pink allover design on a cream background so the fabric "read" as light pink and not cream.

I am very happy with this quilt. You could say I am tickled pink!


Just a reminder that my diamond quilts are inspired by Pam Goecke Dinndorf's Harlequin Quilt. She sells a pattern for it here.

Leftovers

I always say that I do my best thinking when I'm not thinking. What that really means is that sometimes ideas come to me when I'm doing something else. This idea came to me while I was brushing my teeth after breakfast the other day. I had just been in the studio looking at the layout of the Tickled Pink quilt, and when I looked around I saw a lot of leftover pieces that had cream backgrounds.  What would I do with them?***

MAKE ANOTHER QUILT!

That night I went into the studio and gathered up some of the leftover bits and tried to see what they would look like. This could be pretty good. I won't work on this right away, and I don't think the quilt would be as big as Tickled Pink, but hey, you never know.




*** I always find it's important to pose a question when I am working out a problem. If I ask a question, particularly if I ask it to myself before I go to bed at night, I often find I've got an answer to the question the next morning. But it has to be a question.