Another Day in Paradise

Is that a bit of an exaggeration? Perhaps. What I mean to say is that I spent the day in the Sweat Shop and it was good. Better than good. Maybe not Hawaii, but it was better than good. And what did I do there? Well, I worked on the Cindy Lou Who quilt top a good part of the day, but unfortunately the extra fabric for the border didn't come, so I wasn't able to get the top finished. I DID get these two tuffets done to add to the collection. More about them in a minute.

In yesterday's comments about the Cindy Lou Who quilt, a couple of readers complimented my ability to put colors together. While I had some fabric out and handy for photographing, I thought I'd pass on a couple color tips. This one makes picking colors really simple--it's almost cheating! If you can find a border fabric you like, take a look at the selvage edge. See those colored and numbered dots in the photo below?

To pick fabrics for your quilt, try to match the colors in those dots. Make sure you get a nice contrast--in other words, pick colors that match light, medium, and dark dots. Note also that the dots are usually kind of arranged that way, with the darkest dots on one end and the lightest on the other, although they also arrange them by color, so they're not in a strict dark-to-light progression.

Here are more--this is my border fabric for Cindy Lou Who:

By the way, when I picked fabric for this project, I actually stayed kind of close to the colors in the original pattern. I substituted pink for the red in the pattern; a light yellow for the deeper gold in the pattern, and a light blue instead of the green in the pattern. Similar colors, but in each case, lighter than the pattern model.

My second tip has to do with neutrals. Quilts usually have a neutral colored fabric, and most often it's white or cream, depending on the tone of the other colors. Black can also act as a neutral, and it looks best with brights (like red) or light but saturated colors. It's also very dramatic. When putting colors together, consider black as a possible neutral. Keep in mind that it probably won't work as well if there's too much white/cream in your other prints. It will also act to draw the eye rather than recede into the background, so be careful what you use it for.

Now, about those tuffets. Yesterday when I was working on the snowball blocks for Cindy Lou Who, I sewed a second seam on the corner pieces, and when I cut off the excess, I had extra half square triangles.

Do you ever save yours? Sometimes I save them from flying geese blocks too. I'm conflicted though--part of me thinks it's a waste of time and a bother, but the other part of me kind of likes having these little pieces to play with. With this project, I liked the black, light blue, and pink fabrics so much that I decided to take the time to make these half square triangles. Now I have a HUGE pile that need trimming.

Most of the time, I'm able to trim these little guys to 1-1/4". I have no idea what I'll do with all of these, but they'll provide me endless hours of amusement, I'm sure. And they're perfect for the tuffets!

Tomorrow's plans? More of the same sort of fun, I think, although I'm not sure what project I'll work on. Hubby has plans to go to a movie with his brother and I suspect there might be football on, so that leaves my day free for sewing!