Marie knows Roy!

Marie knows Roy and I suspect others of you know too!

Roy G Biv is an easy way to remember the color wheel. Look at a rainbow and you will also see the color wheel. Have you noticed the colors are always in the same position?

R=Red
O=Orange
Y= Yellow

G=Green

B=Blue
I=Indigo
V=Violet

When I laid out the strips for my Picket Fence quilt, I arranged them as much as possible in Roy G Biv order and tried to choose strips from most colors to include in each diamond. This kept me from having too much of one color in the blocks. I would surely have focused in on red if I hadn't done that.

I make a lot of decisions based on color. How many of you cook by color? I usually decide which vegetable to make based on what color the main dish is. Confession - I even eat M&Ms in order of the color wheel. Did you know they don't put equal amounts of each color of M&Ms in the package?!?

Well, I'm sure you are seriously wondering about me by now so I'm not going to tell you how I make M&M cookies! Anyone else maybe just a little under the influence of color?

What about Roy?

Please don't tell me you all know about Roy G Biv! I thought for sure at least one person would ask who he is.

I plan to sew or embroider or both today so I'll post again later with progress.

If you like owls, here's a good time waster Molly and her family. Here are two astounding questions from the chat, "How does the egg hatch if Molly is sitting on it?" and "Does Molly breastfeed?"

I know this is supposed to be a quilting blog so I guess I better get back to it! Later.

Roy G Biv & motivation

Saturday - snow, ice and cold. The picture is what my dining room looked like on Saturday. Those are my strips all laid out and ready to sew together for the medium value diamonds. ROY G BIV, whoops, no indigo. Why I sew in my dining room is a subject for another post, maybe soon. There were no meals at the table on Saturday!

Monday - sunny and a high of 61. I am having a very hard time motivating myself to sew when the weather is so nice. Anybody else having the same problem? BTW, still no meal at the dining room table even though it is cleaned off. My husband took me out for dinner tonight!

Parade of Quilts

I like a good parade! So today a friend and I drove to Yoder, Kansas to see "The Parade of Quilts". The quilts were hung in several businesses and some were very nicely staged. Here are just two of the quilts I really liked. They are both hand quilted and the lower one won "Best of Show" and had already sold! I was hoping you would be able to see each quilt's information on the show label but I'm not sure you'll be able to. Hope you enjoy the quilts!

This quilt wasn't part of the parade but it made me laugh with its wisdom about chocolate!

I'm sitting here listening to the wind and rain hit the window. A winter storm warning is forecast for our area tonight and tomorrow. Sometimes the weather man gets it right and sometimes he doesn't. I'm really hoping he is wrong and we won't get the snow that's been predicted. My plans for tomorrow - stay home, stay warm, make a pot of soup and a loaf of bread and sew!

Picket Fence quilt

Today I was able to make the 49 light value diamonds I need for my next string quilt project, the full size "Picket Fence" quilt designed by Elsie M. Campbell. Its included in her book, String Quilts. You can see a partial photo of the quilt above plus a stack of strips I'll be using for the medium value diamonds. Only need 112 of them!

I like this quilt because of its 3-D look and because it kind of reminds me of a ripple afghan! I can't crochet anything more than a single chain so I have to live out my crochet dreams in a quilting project.

I'm not really a pastel or light value person so making those diamonds was a real challenge. Some look good to me, some look too sweet, too pastel or just too something but I'll wait till I lay the quilt out to see if I need to change anything. The color peach is especially a problem for me because it reminds me of baby aspirin, way too sweet, ick.

Tomorrow, I'll probably take my hand quilting project to quilt bee so I highly doubt I'll get those 112 medium value diamonds finished as soon as I'd like but you never know with me. See you Friday!

A learning experience begins

Today I've been cutting strings in various widths 1 1/2 - 3 inches for my next string project. I've learned that I have mostly medium value fabric and hardly any light value fabric. I haven't gotten to cut much from my darks yet so that bin is looking a little low too.

Its been a lot harder than I thought to sort the strings by value. Some fabrics look light to me but when placed next to another fabric are actually a medium value. I've moved some strings from one box to the next and back again several times now.

I have a lot to learn about color so this project will be a real learning experience!

"Little Red Zinger" String Finish

It's done and just in time for another string project finish! Today I sandwiched it, machine quilted around the red zingers plus a little more and then bound it. Except for a quilt label, its done! Click on the photo for an up close and personal look.