It's OCTOBER! What?!? Wasn't I just basking in the hot summer sun? Well one glance outside and it's obvious that fall is here, the rainy months have come to the Pacific Northwest, and thank goodness. I love to sew when it's raining! The wet evergreen trees out my sewing area window are every shade of green and the red berries are abundant on my neighbor's holly tree. I love the sweater and leather weather.
Without further ado it's tutorial time and it's going to be painfully obvious that I've never done this before. Bear with me through this my Stash Bee buddies, it's another IMPROV block request!
My ultimate goal is something similar to this (photo & quilt by the lovely and talented Debbie Jeske at
A Quilter's Table blogspot):
BUT I would like you to dig deep into your stashes and come up with
DEEP GREEN solids for the backgrounds and a mix of mustard, green, purple and grey blue solids for the "x" highlight pieces.
What really happened here is I volunteered to bind a charity quilt made by my guild (
Seattle Modern Quilt Guild) last July and totally fell in love with it. See inset photo (taken by me at Westport WA).
Kinda didn't want to give it back after I was done if you know what I mean. The dangers of getting involved.
It was all different REDS and YELLOWS! I say it in caps because it really screamed red and yellow, it was fabulous. That's it in the photo on the left, it can even compete 30' up with a giant concrete beach front lookout tower!
But red and yellow is a color scheme that's not for my house. My house calls for soothing mix of dark greens with a pop of mustard, purple and grey blue.
Think deep forest colors with a wild flower or two and you'll see my living room.
Here is a cherished painting which hangs in my living room above a dark leather couch for inspiration (note the sage green living room walls):
If I had a quilt draped over the couch which feels like our mid-century modern painting hanging above it I would be in heaven.
Debbie Jeske, who is a wonderful and talented leader in our guild and has a blog called
A Quilter's Table, kindly said I could use a link to her tutorial for "
X Marks the Improv" for my Stash Bee buds this month.
Debbie's tutorial has the unfinished block size at: 12.5" x 24.5" Obviously that is too large for our Stash Bee guidelines so an unfinished size of 12.5" H x 15.5" W is what we're shooting for here.
The block can be made of a couple "x"s or just one, your call. You know the drill, as you're pulling your fabrics and making you're block the improv will speak to you. Or was that just the voices in my head? I get confused...
Here is what I pulled from my stash for the background evergreen tree colors:
Green olive to deep evergreen and blueish green, think forest canopy.
Here is what talked to me for the "X" cut and insert highlights based on the colors in the painting:
For the highlights I pulled everything from lime green and Kona Wasabi to honey mustard for the bright pops.
For the purples I pulled from magenta purples to deep Kona Storm blue, an ultra marine for pop and a very very blue grey.
I used the Kona names above only for reference, I do not wish you to use those exact fabrics unless you have them and want to use them. I'm not wild about brown fabric as a rule so feel free to leave that one out entirely. Plenty of brown already in the living room.
Please stick with (any brand) solid fabrics only for this project. No "tone on tone" either please. I'd like something that feels very "modern" (whatever THAT means to you) and "improvisational" to go with my mid-century modern art. I hope I haven't constrained you too much with these colors and requirements and you can let your creativity fly here.
I'd like to post photos of blocks I've done for myself but alas there aren't any. Yet. I'll post them as soon as I can.
Thank you so much for what I know will be marvelous and inspired blocks.
It's been an amazing year so far with you my Stash Bees. You're all so talented and wonderful.
Susan Pray
Shoreline, WA
