Kaffe Crayon Box

My paintbox quilt-along top is finished, and I couldn't be happier with it! I'm going to call it my "Kaffe Crayon Box" from now on because I just love crayons and coloring books, and I never was much of a painting kind of girl. When I was a child, one of my favorite Christmas gifts was a box of 64 Crayola crayons with the built-in sharpener. Do you remember when that was the biggest box you could get? With the crayons all lined up neatly in four "stadium" style inserts? And when my daughters were little I would drop anything and everything for the chance to color with them.

These photos in front of my patio door with the bright June sunshine behind are so saturated with vibrant color!


I'm doing some scheming for a backing right now. Originally I was thinking of using one of Kaffe's circular or curvy prints for the entire backing. But in keeping with the theme of crayons, I've now decided to piece a backing... can you guess what it might be?


I need to give a big "THANK YOU" shout-out to Jennie and Paige for their suggestions on an alternate method to add the sashing. The results are so precise! I wanted my blocks to line up as perfectly as possible on this quilt, so the sashing pieces were added to the left and bottom sides of each block before sewing all the blocks together. You can see in the photo below that all the Kona Charcoal sashing is pieced around the blocks, which is a slightly different method than the instructions from Elizabeth at Oh, Fransson!...


This is the first online quilt-along that I have participated in, and it was so well organized, documented, and planned out by Oh, Fransson! Thanks to Elizabeth for all the time and effort she put into this project, and Thanks to Andrea for telling me about it!

Have a lovely June afternoon and Happy Quilting!

pinch me

So there is a group on Facebook called the "SSSQ Quilt Along with Kaffe Fassett" created by STC Craft to celebrate the publication of Kaffe's latest book Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts. It's a public group that anyone can join and upload photos of quilts they are working on using his fabrics and/or patterns. Often he and/or Liza Roos Lucy (his collaborator) will post a comment on the photos.

Yesterday I uploaded this photo of my Paintbox quilt-in-progress to the group, and this evening when I logged into Facebook, this is the comment I saw posted under Liza's name...

"Message from Kaffe:
This dark grid and keeping all the elements of your graphic design constant you are really showing the variety of fabrics to advantage and getting alot of punch from your colours.
Kaffe"

OMGOSH! Can't believe it! All in all a great day for me :) This excitement on top of the absolute joy that today is the 22nd anniversary of the day that I married the best man on the planet. Life is GOOD!

Have a wonderful weekend, dear readers :)

Paintbox progress

I've managed to get all the left and bottom sashings attached to my blocks, although I did it a little differently than the directions from Elizabeth at Oh, Fransson! My quilt group friends advised me to add a bottom sashing piece to each block before arranging them. They thought that adding all the horizontal sashings in continuous strips would make it difficult and frustrating to make all the vertical columns line up correctly (and I'm all about making things easier!) Now after sewing the blocks into rows, and then sewing the rows together, all that will remain is to add one top and one right side piece of sashing. While I tried so hard to find a random color placement that satisfied me, this is the one that pleases me. First I threw all the blocks up in the air and let them flutter to the floor willy-nilly before positioning them. Then I dumped them into a big bag, mixed them up, drew them out one at a time and added them to the design board in that order. I tried a mirror-image layout. But in the end all those options just looked like chaotic messes to me!

I like neat and orderly, and this layout gives me that. Each block is paired with it's partner, and they are arranged in a sort of "snaking S" color spectrum (determined by the solid colors) starting in the upper right corner. We all know how much I love a color spectrum layout, and as much as I'd like to be a random, free-spirited, liberal thinker (with regards to color), I'm just not that kind of girl yet. If I could just get that right-brain of mine to work a little harder...

How would you have arranged this? How do you accomplish color placements that appear to be random, but still look harmonious? At this rate my entire house is going to look like Rainbow Brite has taken up residence here!

CHEERS!

back to the Paintbox

My real life sewing bee group SewMod is getting together this Sunday for a six hour sew-in, and I'm finally going to get back to working on my Paintbox quilt! I am so in love with this quilt!



I cut all the Kona charcoal sashing this week to be prepared for Sunday. There are 80 blocks to be sashed and arranged. I always think I'll get WAAAYY more work done at these sew-ins than actually happens (all that laughing and talking and eating takes up a lot of time!), so I'm trying to be realistic and just hope to finish the left and right sashing.


These are my favorite blocks of the group; they are just so happy - how can you not smile when you see these oranges and yellows?!?!



And now how's this for a "small-world" story: A couple of weeks ago I was working my regular day at the quilt shop and in walks a customer that I know to be a fellow "Kaffe nut". She was looking over the Kona rolls that we had in stock and asked me, "which roll do you think would work best with Kaffe's prints?" So I told her that I was in the middle of a project doing the very same thing, "it's called a Paintbox quilt," I said. Well, she whips out her iPhone (as I'm green with envy because apparently everyone in the universe has one of these things but me) and starts to show me photos of what she's thinking of doing. And whose photo do you think she clicks on FIRST?? That's right - MINE! The photo above is the one she shows me first as I exclaim "those are MY blocks!" and immediately start to feel like kind of a big deal :)

So needless to say, we are each the other's new favorite person, and we fawned and smiled and sighed over Kaffe some more. *sigh* She also chose the "bright" Kona roll for her project...

Next week I'll show you some photos of my weekend progress and my swap quilt that will be mailed out early next week - I've just got to hand sew the binding and label and that little baby is done!

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Oh, heavenly day!

Today I spent an entire hour outside walking my dog, and it is a glorious day here in Northern Illinois. All of our snow is finally gone, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and LIFE IS GOOD! I have also spent A LOT of time staring out the window today, finally feeling that soon I'll be seeing this view...

This is a small garden area near the gate to my back yard. It is the view I see every time I drive the car into the garage, every time I come home from walking the dog, and every time I go out in the morning to get the paper (during the summer, of course.) It is a lovely little area filled with boxwoods, snapdragons, coneflowers, zinnias, as well as other annuals that spring up from seeds that were just "dropped in." But my favorite part is the sign. I made that several years ago from a pattern found in a Mary Engelbreit craft book. I have to repaint it and the post (a painted stairway spindle and ball-topper from Home Depot) every few years, but it is worth the time - so cheerful! It stays outside all year long, and every year the twine holding up the sign breaks, and sometimes the entire thing is covered with snow. But it is always there, waiting for spring and flowers - just like me!

Speaking of flowers... these Anna Maria Horner Garden Party prints came in the mail last week from hawthornethreads.com. I just had to get them out and photograph them on this wonderful day along with these cuties...

Aren't they happy! Alexander Henry Willow line... again from hawthornethreads.com

I did have a few moments of productivity today when I managed to get some more paintbox quilt-along blocks done. Only six more solids to go and I"LL BE READY FOR SASHING!! I am love, love, loving how they have all turned out!

Hope you are having a glorious sunny day at your house, too!!

Kaffe Love

I am in love with this man's fabric designs. I discovered Kaffe Fassett a few years ago at a quilt show in Northern Illinois... never heard of the guy before that. I love the riot of color in each and every design.

I have been collecting the fabrics ever since that quilt show, but until now I have NEVER cut into a single piece of his fabric from my stash. Oh, sure, I've bought specific yardage to make a few bags and cut into that. But I loved that "the stash" was neatly folded and securely stored in a big plastic see-thru bin. I could take it out and touch and admire it any time I wanted. And I did... a lot!

I mulled over many ideas of what to use it for, but never settled on any one. What if I found a better project later, and had already used it?

Then a few months ago my dear friend Andrea told me about the Oh, Fransson! online Paintbox Quilt-Along project (http://www.ohfransson.com/). Eureka! THE PERFECT PROJECT! All I had to purchase was a roll of Kona brights, and I was good to go! So now we are into week 8 and I have 56 of the 80 blocks finished. I'm really going to have to ramp it up the next couple of weeks to finish on time. I've chosen the sashing and borders - Kona Charcoal - my new favorite. It's going to be spectacular!

AND... I am completely geeked about the class I am taking with Kaffe at the Rosemont, IL quilt show this April. We are designing a snowball quilt with fussy-cut large floral blooms. I am hoping to learn a lot about color choices and combinations from him. And a quilting class also means... collecting more fabric... bummer :)

Hope you are having warmer days filled with more sunshine as we creep toward spring!