Central Coast Colors

Central Coast Summer

Watching the Olympics has indeed been good for finishing some hand sewing!

Big stitches in the border.

I used a stencil and a white chalk marking pencil to mark this design onto the border of my Central Coast Solstice quilt. Pamela asked me about measuring the sides of the quilt and calculating how the design would fit. That kind of perfectionism is for others, and for machines; my quilt designs are a little more organic, you might say. Start at one corner and work toward the middle, then start at the next corner and work back to the middle again. Where the two meet up, add or subtract or modify a design element to make it fit!

Add another diamond in the middle to fill the space!

I moved around the perimeter of the quilt, and the little difference in the diamond orientation means that all four sides are slightly different. If I'd done two opposite sides, then the other two opposite sides, they'd match each other... oh well! Another lesson learned! 

Doesn't it look charming on the bed?
This is my sewing room/guest room,
where I can admire it easily!

I sewed together the blocks for Easy Street. 

I have put a lot of time and energy and fabric into this quilt top, but I don't love it. My fault: I toned down the colors recommended for this mystery quilt, and I should have toned down the background, too, to give the design more contrast. I love the pattern, but  I don't want to work on this anymore. I made a backing for it, and took it to the charity team for my quilt guild. They'll long-arm quilt it for me, then I'll bind it and donate it to the guild for our quilt auction this summer. It's a win-win situation: the quilt gets finished and benefits someone else! Out of my UFO pile, and my conscience! 

So, what have I learned from these projects? (Maybe if I write it down I'll remember?)

1. When making a mystery, pay attention to the contrast between the colors I choose. If I choose colors different from the recommended colors, especially, try to achieve the same intensity/value as the recommended hue. (Then my Easy Street wouldn't look so mushy.)

2. Before assembling blocks from all the components I've made, stop and look online at what others are doing. Try some of the block variations others are posting to see if they suit my composition. (Turning some chevrons around in my CCS blocks would have made stars inside the blue rings, but I wasn't about to take the blocks apart and resew them!)

3. If it looks like I'm making setting triangles for an on-point setting, stop and lay out the blocks and decide if I like the blocks that way, or if I prefer a straight setting. Then I won't have to take apart those setting triangles and remake them into full blocks. (Ahem.)

Here's to the new year!

Sigh. Vacation is over. Time to go back to work.

You'd think with a month-long break in the school schedule, I'd have plenty of time to write a blog post, right? Nope! I have filled my free time with family and fabric!

We enjoyed one of the most fun Christmases ever. We were in Pittsburgh, where the weather wasn't as freezing as it might have been, and there was snow! DD planned lots of fun activities, and there was time to hang out, too.

Making rubber band bracelets.

The little family!

Operation! Poppy's going for the Charley Horse,
while John is missing his girlfriend,
and showing his broken heart.

Now I can show you some cute Christmas gifts I made.

My mom and my niece, Ellie, told me they'd like a jewelry roll for taking earrings with them when they travel. I used a tutorial from Fiberosity to make these. I'd love to share a link to the tutorial, but my computer won't connect to it anymore... that probably means it's been pulled off the website to be published in a book.

Little zippered pockets to keep earrings safe.

The one in the middle is my first try.
 I tweaked the pattern for the others, and had fun quilting them.

This is what they look like rolled up.

Bonnie Hunter posts a mystery quilt on her blog, Quiltville, that starts after Thanksgiving and this year ended at New Year's Day. It's a mystery because she gives instructions for one unit of the quilt blocks at a time, and you don't know how they'll be put together until the end.  Last year I joined in and made all the blocks for Easy Street, but the blocks are sitting in a basket, waiting to be sewn together and made into a quilt. Truth be told, I wasn't happy with the fabrics I used. I think my background black-and-white fabrics are too busy, and I used shades of aqua and green and purple that get lost in the pattern. 

Don't worry, I'll finish it!

Bonnie was inspired for this year's mystery quilt by her visit to Ireland, where she loved the green hills. I immediately thought of my love for summer's golden hills here on the Central Coast of California, and decided to use fabrics in my stash to reflect the dark oaks on the hills, and the blue skies, and the ocean. 

I made triangle units

                                      
and diagonal units that got turned into chevrons

and half-square-triangles that got turned into pinwheels

and when all the blocks were done, some of my color placements weren't ideal. I wanted to make a rectangle instead of a square quilt, so I made more blocks, and scattered a few with the different color placement throughout. If you squint, you can see a few white diamonds scattered in the blue rings. That's the effect the entire quilt was meant to have, but my dark browns and yellows were reversed. 

Poor nighttime picture...

I've sewn it all together, with borders, and I've quilted it already! I used Elizabeth Hartman's dogwood pattern, and I definitely got better as I went along! I think the wobbly stitches will blend in when the quilt is washed, and the quilt puckers up around the stitching in that cozy way I like so much!

The colors are truer in this pic!

Right now the binding is on, ready to be hand-stitched on the back, and I intend to hand-stitch something in the border, too. Can I wait until the Olympics to do it, so I have something to do while watching the Games? 

Linking up to Bonnie's Quiltville site...