Learning to Paper Piece

About 4 years ago, I sewed my first stitch, after having protested the idea of sewing for much of my life. It's amazing, really, how kids will transform you. After a series of events with my boys, that landed them in the hospital, and realizing during this time, just how much comfort their blankies provided to them, I decided I wanted to learn how to quilt. At the same time, I started our local Project Linus chapter (we provide hand made quilts to seriously ill children). My mission, to make quilts for other children in need.

In the beginning, my quilts were simply patchwork quilts, and I did really enjoy making them. Over time, these have become a bit boring to me, and seriously, how many patchwork quilts can one person have? That said, I went on a hunt....I needed a challenge. I joined a number of quilt guilds, and a few online quilting groups. Both offer a lot of learning opportunity from some of the most skilled quilters. Some of these groups also offer exchanges. While I was reluctant to join at first, worried my skills were not up to par, I have found that it's a great way to try new techniques, without committing yourself to an entire quilt. This month, to go along with our Celebration of Color, I opted to try a little paper piecing with some red fabrics I had in my stash. I must admit, I'm not a real "heart" person. A little too "cutesie" for me. However, with these rich reds, I rather liked them. I found that paper piecing is a great way to use up those little scraps of fabric that I have been collecting in a box. Now I'm stash diving for the next paper piecing project :-)

February Reds - A Little Lesson

If you follow our blog, then you learned about pure color, tone, shade, and tints last month. We had a little lesson in this exploration last week, and the gorgeous reds you see to the left were the result.

The 2nd from the left, is our pure red. Reds can be very tricky, as many times they either have orange/brown undertones, or blue undertones. This red is gorgeously pure! As you may recall, a tint is created when adding white to a pure color. Tinkly Cocktail, on the far left, was our result. Next, we added a little gray, to create a tone, and come up Sangria, a sort of smokey red. Lastly, was creating a shade....adding black to our true red. The result....heavenly! We called it crushed velvet as the richness in colors makes us think of velvet. It appears, that it quickly became a favorite! We posted our update on Facebook on February 2nd, and it sold out almost immediately. Not to fear though, we've restocked! Remember that these glorious reds are on sale this month at 15% Off!