Category Archives: Color

The wonderful wheel of color…

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Three of my friends at C&T (Lynn Koolish, Kerry Graham, and Mary Wruck have written a book about color, and the ‘Wonderful Wheel Of Color’ for kids and I’ve gotta say that I am impressed! (FYI, you’ll find this book on my site here.)

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First, the color information is written for kids but it is not dumbed down. The language is clear and written in a way that kids will relate to. Elanor is already looking forward to getting her hands on this book :-).

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There are plenty of activities. Some are what you would expect in a book about a color wheel with color wheel patterns to paint, collages to make, and designs to color. But there is even more! There are projects perfect for kids, and maybe adults!

Elanor’s BFF, Lola, is coming to visit for 2 weeks this summer. They’ll be spending quite a bit of time at our house and I can see t-shirts…

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…and paper flowers…

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…and hand-sewn stuffies in our future!

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This book is only $12.95! You can find it at pieceocake.com here.

Really?!

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Have you ever seen purple potatoes? We got some, they were in a bag that said that they were proudly grown in Idaho. Who knew—they are purple inside and out! There was no photoshop enhancements involved…

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They don’t taste purple. They do add a special something to a dinner plate and, if you have kids who are picky eaters, you could have a whole lot of fun with these.

I’m traveling to CA today to visit a friend and I am looking forward to it! There will be some sitting and stitching and visiting and eating of cake! I hope you have a similarly wonderful weekend :-).

 

Piles and piles of fabric…

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Linda is on her way home after having been here since last Tuesday. We worked on two up-coming books. One book is about appliqueing with wool in combination with cotton and linen fabrics. I can’t show you any projects but I can show you a pile of fabric that I will use to make a table runner. Just looking at the colors makes me happy!

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We also went to McKinney to shop for fabric (twice) at both The Quilt Asylum and Happiness is Quilting. We are also working on a revision of our Piecing book and we needed new fabric for those quilts. I won the spending contest, but not by a whole lot :-). My fabric is now washed and folded (Linda helped me with that). Paul will wash her fabric when she gets home.

Most of the fabrics in my piles, below, are from our shopping trips, and some is from my stash. I’m sure that these fabrics will be joined by others as I make the quilts on my list.

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The fabric I bought seemed so much bigger when it was in the shopping bags than it does when it has been neatly folded and stacked. I suppose that’s a good thing—otherwise I would need another closet for my stash.

 

An outing to look at flowers…

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Mom’s 82nd birthday was last week! She enjoyed a variety of activities and one was a trip to the Dallas Arboretum. Lorna came up with the idea for this excellent adventure and I’m glad she did. Mom, Lorna, Bear and I set off on  Wednesday morning, a beautiful north Texas spring day.

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Bear was an excellent adventurer. He rode in the stroller and sometimes got to get out and walk…

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The grown-ups looked at the flowers and plants, mostly to get ideas about what we might do in our own yards. Wild roses are so pretty, but I don’t have room…

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I have a lot more shade in my yard now than I used to and the best idea I got was to plant some ferns, purple oxalis, and some other purple-y shade lovers!

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I also have succulents in pots near the pool. I wish I could grow one of these, but there’s just not room…

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Here is my succulent space. No room for a century plant, although these guys should get bigger over the summer.

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Mom loves her plants. She used to love to work in the yard but she can’t do that so much any more. Happily she is only 4 houses down so I can do some digging for her, along with Hector (her yard man and his crew), and Christopher.

I spent most of last Thursday and Friday in my yard, and then mom’s yard. I should have been working on the manuscript for the next (two) book(s), but I didn’t. I felt some guilt but not enough to go inside :-). I was too busy last year with the color book to work in the yard and I promised myself that this year I would get out and deal with the bare spots. The weather was perfect when I planted and we got some rain on Sunday to water the plants in. My yard is making me smile!

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It’s nice now and it’s only going to get better! FYI to those who have not seen pics of my yard before: it’s small and unusual for my neighborhood. Every other house has the typical big yard of grass with bushes at the house. Lucky for us we live in a neighborhood without restrictions. Also, luckily, our neighbors really like our yard.

 

Flowers are pretty!

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There are times when I wonder why so many of my quilts have flowers on them. And then, spring happens!

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Dianthus is a happy plant. Look closely at the bottom, center bud that is opening like a whirlygig. So fun!

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Many of my iris are now in so much shade that they’ve given up, but not this one. One of the best parts of digital photography is that you can almost always get decent close-ups and it’s so lovely to see the details in flowers. I love the beard…

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Columbines are always exciting!

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Like shooting stars, or fireworks, or aliens…

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I have some bluebonnets in my yard and they are such a great shade of blue. I’m hoping to gather the seeds this year and scatter them better than I have in years past.

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I know that many of you are not yet enjoying spring. I hope these pictures make you smile on this Easter weekend.

 

 

Magenta!

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I subscribe to Now I Know, written by Dan Lewis. I get an interesting email about 5 days a week and on Feb. 4 I learned more about magenta.

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We all know that magenta fits in between red and blue, so why don't we see it in a rainbow? Now I know! 

The short story is that when visible light is broken down into colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, Indigo, and violet), red is at one end and violet is at the other. They don't connect so the blended color between them (magenta) isn't there. Click here to read the longer story.

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It's also interesting to note that magenta isn't on a standard, 12-wedge color wheel. Violet is what you will find next to red there too.  

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In related news, I only thought I was done with the manuscript for the Color book. My editor called Friday with several suggestions. After a deep sigh, I realized that her points were excellent and that the re-writing will make the book even better. So that's what I've been working on instead of blog posting. 

One of Lynn's suggestions was that I look again at Joen Wolfrom's Ultimate 3-In1 Color Tool. You know what? It's really very helpful! She includes a 24-part color wheel that includes magenta and more. Cool. But what's really nice about this tool is that it takes each of the 24 colors and shows them in a variety of tints (lighter versions), shades (darker versions), and tones (grayer versions).

It is the addition of tones that I think is the best part of this tool. If you work with grayed fabrics (like Civil War prints) this is really handy. For example, if you have a grayed red fabric and you want to put green with it, you can look at the greens and you will find a variety of grayed greens. Take the tool with you to the quilt shop and you can look for the best match to the color you want.

I've got the 3-In-1 Tool on order and will have it on the site soon.