March Color Palette Update

So when I started this months color palette challenge, I thought I was going to hate it.  I'll be honest, I did not want to do it!  (I skipped last month on the same excuse and well this is suppose to be a challenge, right?)

If you aren't familiar with this challenge, you should check it out.  Each month Judy Laquidara from Patchwork Times and Vicky Welsh from Field Trips in Fiber pick a different color palette.  The goal for the month is to make a project using the chosen color scheme.  It's really pushing me out of my comfort zone in a good way.

There were so many colors and not ones that I could say I loved, but I pushed through and finally came up a block design.

I changed out a few of my original fabrics I had chosen and in the end it has really grown on me.  I only finished this block, and for the month that's all I'm going to do.  The original plan was to make another small quilt, but my husband loves it so much that I think it is turning into a full sized quilt.  I can get more of some of the fabrics, but others I know are very old and I will never find.  We decided that this will be a pillow case after the full sized quilt is done, so it doesn't have to match the full sized quilt.  I want to get the rest of the fabric before I finish it in case I have to make some major adjustments, so for this month, the color palette is finished.

I plugged the block into EQ and came up with some ideas for turning this into a full sized quilt.  I'm thinking that the borders on the second one might make this a bit dark, but the tone on tone black I used in the block doesn't read as a pure black, so maybe it will be ok.

I guess it's time to head out fabric shopping!

Not much sewing going on around here

I have to admit, this week there has not been much thought on sewing.  I blame that on The Hunger Games.  My husband read the first book in The Hunger Games series a few months ago and since the movie was coming out he wanted to go see it.  Honestly, I had no desire to read a book that involved people killing each other.  But in good spirits on Sunday night I decided to dig in and read it.  Being a young adult book I figured I could get it finished by this weekend in time to go see the movie.  Boy was I wrong!  I finished all three books by Thursday night and went and saw the movie last night.  Loved them all!

Needless to say, that has left very little time for sewing this week, but I did get moving on my star quilt.  (I really need to come up with a name for this!)

I think it's going to be a really fun quilt when I'm done, but boy does it have a lot of small pieces.  (Sorry, the lighting on this today is terrible, but it's pouring rain outside with no end in sight, so that's as good as it's going to get this week.)

March Color Palette

Here is the palette for March's Color Palette Challenge.  I didn't participate in February's challenge partly because I was so busy, and partly because I am determined to use only stash fabric for this and I just couldn't find anything in my stash that would work.  I think I can make this month work.  Here's what I am looking at using.

I had a little trouble finding anything exactly along the lines of the taupe-grey color, but I think my selection will work.  This is certainly not in my comfort zone, so it should be fun figuring out!

I've been busy...

Shopping!

Last weekend was the local quilt guild's annual show.  I got to go (twice) with several quilting friends and had a blast!  I also shopped...a lot!  I think I probably stocked up enough new projects to furnish an entire UFO list for 2013.  I'm going to need to start spending a lot more time quilting to get some of these done!

Here's some fun things I bought!

These half yard cuts were $3 each.  That's a steal for fabric around here.  (Usually $11 per yard!)  I love the black and green!

I fell in love with this kit!  Do you see the octopus in the pattern? 

I love this fabric selection!  The pattern is designed by a company that customizes patterns for 8 fat quarters and sells packs of coordinating fabric.  It's my favorite both every year. 

This is other fabric I bought.  The lady bug fabric is going to be place mats for my niece.  She's turning three and we bought her a tea set for her birthday.  

The tonga treat was only $28.  I actually hate to color orange.  (I know most of you really like orange, but I have a really hard time with it.  I think it comes from growing up in Colorado and wearing way to much blue and orange Bronco's gear as a kid.)  I like this tonga treat though and I think it's going to work perfect for a project I've wanted to do for a while. One of my friends is an amazing hand embroiderer.

  

I saw this pattern and thought it might be fun to learn how to do hand embroidery.  (Like I need more projects!)

 This book just came out and has some adorable quilts on English Paper Piecing.  I picked it up as well as a bunch of new sizes of English Paper Piecing templates.

Lastly, I picked up this new book.  It is all machine paper pieced patterns in both 10" blocks as well as 4" blocks.

Anyone think this will keep me busy for a while?

February and March UFOs

I made progress!  I also decided that needle turn applique is not for me!  Here's February's UFO now.  I got the second swirl and two flowers down.

Since several of you asked, yes this pattern is from the X-Lands book by Patricia Pepe.  I love this book!

I don't know if it counts as progress that I also sewed three other flowers down at some point during the month and tore them back out because they were really bumpy and did not look good at all.

It was definitely a learning experience and   I may add a few larger pink dots at some point this month.  I also plan to get the borders on this month since the UFO for March shouldn't take me too much time.

Here's a closer view of the flowers.  They are still a little bumpy.  All those curves were more difficult than I expected.  I think I tried three different methods of prepping the applique.  The one thing I did learn was the benefit of heavy starch.

March's UFO is #8, this picnic blanket I started several years ago.  All it needs is the borders.  Should be easy!  Since it's fast, I'm also going to count getting the borders on February's UFO as part of the UFO for the March.  I'm starting to realize how many quilt tops I have that are just missing borders.  I think I could put borders on one quilt a month through the end of the year.  I might have to start on that!