Cosmos

If you've followed A Quilter's Table for long, you know there are a couple of particular color challenges that I like to participate in, if only by myself. The biggest is the Pantone Color of the Year, which will be announced soon; but also, I enjoy challenging myself to use the KONA Color of the Year, which this year is Cosmos!

Folks seem to have a love-hate relationship with purple, but I'm a fan! Even though I don't use it a lot in my quilting, I'm definitely willing to. How about you? Yay or nay? Or does challenging yourself with color not interest you? All's fair!

ColorS of the Year

I very nearly forgot that I was up for Faith Circle's quilt plan this month. Seriously, about 5PM on January 31, just out of curiosity, I went to check the quilter schedule, and there was my name for February. Oops!

Some quick scanning of my Quilt Blocks Pinterest board led me to Jodi/Tales of Cloth's Squash Blossom block tutorial. And without much more thought than that, I also chose a palette focused on the Pantone Color of the Year, Greenery.

photo courtesy of Pantone

Here's my sample block, which I think is really striking in a finished quilt, and I can't wait to see it in a mix of greens!

I fully intend to explore Greenery more this year, but this is a start. I've heard rumors that a 2017 Pantone Quilt Challenge is in the works, hosted by Rebecca/@bryanhousequilts and Sarah/@nohatsquilts, so I'm watching for that.

And then there's the other Color of the Year - Kona's Pink Flamingo.

photo courtesy of Robert Kaufman

My guild Giving Committee co-host Louise/I'm Feelin' Crafty and I decided an improv quilt in Pink Flamingo would be a great way to start off a new year's giving quilt. Circa15 kindly gifted the guild with a generous supply of Pink Flamingo, and each participant will get a 9" x 11" piece at our next meeting, to mix with gray and white to create a 12 1/2" block of their own design. Doesn't that sound fun?

So I'm looking forward to using both of these colors - one (Greenery) which is right up my alley - and the other (Pink Flamingo) not quite. Do you have any plans to incorporate either in your creating this year?

A Dead Simple {Revised} Plan

I had a plan for the Dead Simple Quilt-Along {see here}, but things have changed slightly. This was my chosen palette:

KONA wheat, sweet pea, olive, tan, lupine

Well, when the fabric came, I realized that in reality, olive wasn't the right green for this palette, so I've substituted KONA artichoke.

KONA wheat, sweet pea, artichoke, tan, lupine

It may be hard to tell from these swatches. In fact the swatch for sweet pea really isn't as dusky as it is in person. But artichoke seems a better fit.

If I were to follow Lynne's layout, mine would look something like this:

I may be tweaking it a bit, but there is my tentative dead simple plan.

A Shop and A Book

Yesterday, while out and about, I visited a sweet little quilt shop, Glad Creations. I was welcomed by the most wonderful display of KONA cotton solids. Sooo lovely!

Mom was with me and fell in love with a sample table runner, so we had fun picking out some fabric for a project for her. So while this isn't exactly 'stash fabric', it'll be nice to have it hang out in the sewing room until I get started.

Lastly, I saw a new book I was interested in, which I didn't realize was even on the shelves yet! Couldn't resist buying a copy each for daughter dear and myself.

It features 12 different quilt bloggers who participated in a year-long "block party". The book is full of modern quilt blocks, 'taught' by several bloggers I follow - A Quilt is Nice, Film in the Fridge, Tall Grass Prairie, and Oh, Fransson - and more that I want to check out! What a great little quilty outing!

Socken

I've joined a second quilt along, Socken (German for "sock"), sponsored by Cherry House Quilts. Cherri of Cherry House LOVES solids, and pretty much uses only them in her quilts. Solid quilts are very trendy right now, and this project looked easy and fun.

The schedule:

2/1/11 CUTTING INSTRUCTIONS

2/8/11 PIECED COLUMNS

2/15/11 ASSEMBLE QUILT TOP

2/22/11 QUILT THE TOP

3/1/11 FINISH THE QUILT

We were encouraged to use Kona Cotton Solids, of which there are over 200! I had enough 'Ash' for the background, so just needed to choose colors for the squares (Black, Coal, Purple, Marine Blue).