Category Archives: Design

Color Inspiration Thursday {12}

August 1, 2014 kittywilkin 2 Comments

One of my favorite parts about traveling is the variety of new sights that you get to see. I like to look at things from an up-close-and-personal perspective, especially when it comes to nature. With my background in environmental science and ecology, I like to think that I see differences and similarities in landscape and vegetation that a normal passerby may not notice. Nature is endlessly beautiful, and when seen from an intimate distance, that beauty is intensified greatly. Here are some bits of beauty as seen in my travels over the past week.

These color palettes are created using Play Crafts’ Palette Builder 2.1 and my photographs.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Charcoal, Coal, Pewter, Black, Stone, Taupe

The beach on Lake Erie is a nice balance of fine sand and smooth rocks of varying sizes. I’ve become accustomed to the rocky Maine coast, and the beaches here in Ohio are a gentle respite from those footwear-requiring, albeit beautiful, beaches. Varied rock types, including many conglomerates and fossils can be found along the beaches, which add to the aesthetic.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Palm, Laurel, Black, Chocolate, Shale, Coal

These green buds were too awesome to pass by. It’s another earthy, dark palette, but the balance of green and shady grey-blues with the dark black/brown are a beautiful embodiment of green goodness.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Evergreen, Fog, Shale, Palm, Ivy, Parsley

Buttonbush is a wetland shrub typically found in standing water. When I was a wetland scientist doing delineations, we LOVED finding buttonbush since it is an obligatory wetland plant and therefore a clear indicator of the wetland area, not to mention its gorgeous and whimsical flower. This palette is included more for the novelty of the plant than the colors, but it’s another lighter variation on the green and blue nature palette.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Spice, Gold, Amber, Garnet, Rich Red, Peridot

I wouldn’t leave you without at least one big burst of color! This tiger lily from my mom’s garden just burns with vibrancy! While tiger lilies bloom in the height of summer, I can’t help but feel a bit of autumn in this palette. I’m a summer lover, though, so I am NOT hurrying autumn along by any stretch. I just need to make that clear. I’ll take summer for as long as I can have it!

Enjoy! I’d love to see what you create with these palettes.

Design, Life

Color Inspiration Thursday {11}

July 24, 2014 kittywilkin 2 Comments

This week you will get another glimpse into the colorful world of the Maine coast. Meanwhile, I’m driving all day long with my husband and two small children, off toward Ohio for our next family vacation! You get the better end of the deal, I think, but I hope to have some new fun photographs for next week’s color inspiration.

As always, the color palettes are created using Play Crafts’ Palette Builder 2.1 and my photographs.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Charcoal, Steel, Pewter, Dusty Blue, Sweet Pea, Black

I love to get a really close look at the stones and shells at the beach. What from above looks like a bunch of rocks, when inspected from an inch or two away, is an entire world of complex beauty. Tiny bits of shell, stone, sea glass, and even pieces of sea creatures create a gorgeously intricate scene.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Steel, Fog, Wasabi, Yarrow, Sunflower, Raffia

Vacationing with children, there are sure to be little splashes of color in the form of buckets, shovels, and other beach toys. I couldn’t resist a photo of this bright yellow bucket in the surf, and I love the color palette that resulted. Yellow and gray are GREAT together!

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Pepper, Coal, Spice, Earth, Primrose, Shale

A lobster tail washed up onto the beach, providing the perfect finale for the Maine coast color palettes. After all, Maine and lobster are synonymous according to some people. I have really loved the heavy presence of gray in many of these coastal color palettes, and I love how well gray plays with the pops of color that emerge in other details.

I hope these color palettes inspire you, and I would love to see any quilts that you create using these palettes!

Design, Life

Color Inspiration Thursday {10}

July 17, 2014 kittywilkin 9 Comments

Greetings from the coast of Maine! This week, my family is vacationing on Hancock Point, Maine, with my husband’s family. We’ve had a solid mix of sunny and stormy weather, but the forecast looks promising for the remaining two days of our trip. Despite the rain, I’ve taken hundreds of photos since we’ve arrived (does anyone else have a penchant for filling camera card capacities in record time?!), both of my kids enjoying playtime with Grammy, Grampy, and Aunts and Uncles, and of course plenty of shells and rocky coast. Be prepared for a good month of Maine coast-fueled color inspiration!

Here are the inspiration color palettes for the week, created with Play Crafts’ Palette Builder 2.1 and my own photographs.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Baby Blue, Charcoal, Moss, Dresden Blue, Raffia, Biscuit

A Maine coast inspired day would not be complete without a photograph of the gorgeous crashing tide on the seaweed and barnacle-bedecked rocks. I have loved watching the tide ebb and flow, and our view of Acadia (that’s Cadillac Mountain in the background) makes the view that much sweeter. There is something peaceful about the gentle sway of the seaweed as the waves bring the tide in or out, even with the smashing spray on the rocks. I love this color palette exactly as it formed. To me, it’s quintessential Maine coast: peaceful and earthy.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Steel, Sable, Smoke, Black, Moss, Charcoal

Exploring the treasures that abound along the coast is especially exciting with my two- and four-year-olds. There is nothing like the endless wonder of a child encountering nature’s beauty. This starfish is being gently held by my normally rambunctious two year old son. He didn’t even throw the rock into the water after holding it–amazing!

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Ash, Shale, Old Green, Stone, Black, Charcoal

Never in my life have I found more perfectly polished and abundant sea glass than on this private home’s beach on Hancock Point. I love sea glass, and simply stacked on a smooth, dark, Maine stone, this palette brings me so much joy and peace. A bit of gentle turquoise (Shale meets Old Green) and light grays, with the solid foundation of the black/charcoal stone.

Enjoy these first peeks into my week. There will be more Maine coast palettes awaiting you next Thursday!

Design, Life

Color Inspiration Thursday {9}

July 11, 2014 kittywilkin 3 Comments

Thursday… was yesterday. I had a rare date night with my husband last night, which meant the day was spent packing overnight bags and getting us and the kids up to the in-law’s house, getting ready, etc. So this week you’ll get your color inspiration on Friday, just in time for the weekend! This summer has been a great reminder as to why summer is one of my all-time favorite seasons. I just love the endless beauty that grows, blooms, and emerges daily. This week’s color palettes feature a few newly blooming flowers from my garden. I certainly hope you are not tiring of flower photos! Created with the Play Crafts Palette Builder 2.1, here are your inspiration palettes for the week.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right: Palm, O.D. Green, Pewter, Leprechaun, Hibiscus, Cappuccino

This palette is exactly as it was created by the Palette Builder, without any tweaking or moving of colors. I love it. The little burst of bright green (Leprechaun) and purple (Hibiscus) are so well balanced by the more muted greens, grey, and dark brown. I could see these colors in a throw quilt for a couch in an elegant living room.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right: Sunny, Yarrow, Gold, Cedar, Paprika, Corn Yellow

You can’t go wrong with a sunny palette like this one! Everyone needs a bit more yellow in their lives, right?

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Peridot, Basil, Eggplant, Violet, Magenta, Punch

This flower was actually photographed at a friend’s house at Pemaquid Point, Maine. I saw the flowers dangling from a trellis alongside the house and simply had to take a few photographs. Such a voluptuous, gorgeous flower! And the colors are among my favorites these days. All I need is a bright teal background and it would be perfect. Even as is, I love this palette of brightness.

Tomorrow my family and I are headed off to the coast of Maine, to a house in Hancock right on the ocean. I’m excited to spend some quality time with my family, swimming, kayaking, and taking walks along the coast in search of treasures. I hope to do some sewing if we have any rainy days, but as with any vacation, who knows what each day will hold? I do know that I will be on the lookout for splashes of unexpected color! You never know what you will find by the ocean.

Where is your favorite place to vacation?

Design, Life

Color Inspiration Thursday {8}

July 3, 2014 kittywilkin 3 Comments

In honor of the 4th of July tomorrow, your inspiration color palettes for the week feature red, white, and blue in true patriotic fashion. I have a confession to make: I did a lot of tweaking to these palettes to get them to be primarily red, white, and blue. Don’t get me wrong–the colors are all present in the photographs; they just were not the colors that came up on the palette when first created. That’s one of the features of the Play Crafts Palette Builder 2.1 that I love, though. You can move the color-choosing dots around on the photograph until you find the featured colors you love.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Wine, Tomato, Rose, Snow, Fog, Regal

Our garden strawberries are now slowing to a trickle, but we had a decent crop this year despite an overly weedy strawberry bed. I took these pictures of our first harvest, a bit over a week ago. Nothing like some good red, white, and blue (blueberries won’t be far behind) from the garden!

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Coal, Shale, Crimson, Paprika, Shadow, Pewter

I love all of the stony grey-blues that find their way into this palette. I think it would make a great patriotic quilt, or depending on how you lay out the colors, would be quite a nice earthy quilt with the red as a feature color.

What would you make with these palettes?

Have a safe and fun holiday weekend to those of you in the United States!

Design, Life

Color Inspiration Thursday {7}

June 26, 2014 kittywilkin 1 Comment

This week’s color inspiration comes from yet another flower adorning our yard: the locust tree’s gorgeous pink blooms. Many locust trees have white flowers, but the previous owners of our house had a serious thing for beautiful flowers, so it does not surprise me that ours flowers pink. These flowers not only look beautiful, but they smell great as well. Here are color palettes from two very different photographs of these beautiful blooms, created with Play Crafts’ Palette Builder 2.1 combined with my photographs. I hope they inspire you!

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Cerise, Olive, Plum, Lupine, Petunia, Raffia

The locust blooms begin with this glorious, vibrant pink, but slowly fade to a hazy purple as the petals die and blow off the tree. The tree’s show of beauty is not yet complete, however. The purple petals cover the ground beneath the tree, blowing about in the breeze and making everything prettier.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Steel, Raisin, Coal, Bone, Pansy, Lilac

Design, Life

Color Inspiration Thursday {6}

June 19, 2014 kittywilkin 4 Comments

Here in midcoast Maine, summer is upon us. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous, and I have been taking full advantage. I have not spent much time in front of my sewing machine, but have spent a LOT of time exploring local islands, playing at the beach, and swimming in Swan Lake with my kids. Today’s color inspiration palettes come from some photographs from our adventures; sea glass on a drift wood log, and a gorgeous iris seen along a wooded path.

The palettes were created using Play Crafts’ Palette Builder 2.1. May you be inspired.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Shale, Steel, Charcoal, Spring, Peridot, Blue Jay

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Black, Forest, Basil, Ash, Magenta, Lavender, Amethyst

Here are some more photos of the gorgeous spots we’ve been exploring lately:

Headed toward the sandbar connecting Hutchins Island to Islesboro, Maine.

Playing in tide pools on Hutchins Island.

I’ll leave you with one more adorable color palette.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Medium Gray, Blueberry, Charcoal, Laurel, Old Green, Indigo

Where is your favorite place for adventure during the summer?

Design, Life

Color Inspiration Thursday {5}

June 12, 2014 kittywilkin 5 Comments

It’s peony time in my garden, so today’s inspiration comes entirely from those large, voluptuous flowers. There’s something about flowers that makes me reflect in awe about nature’s complexity. The petals are so soft, often symmetrical, yet abstractly swirling, the centers are a little universe of stamen and pistil, drawing the bees and butterflies into their little world to ensure the spread of future generations. It’s just flat out amazing!

Here are your color inspiration palettes for the week, created using Play Crafts’ Palette Builder 2.1. I hope they inspire you in the creation of a new quilt or project, or even just to take an extra moment to pause, get close, and really look at the next flower you pass. You may be surprised at what a closer look reveals.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Coal, Steel, Magenta, Garnet, Raisin, Palm

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Candy Pink, Azalea, Pomegranate, Kelly, Brick, Cerise

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Salmon, Smoke, Sienna, Poppy, Gold, Grass Green

Can you think of anything more beautiful than a freshly blooming peony?

Design, Life

Color Inspiration Thursday {4}

June 5, 2014 kittywilkin 4 Comments

The past two days have been gloomy and rainy, but I can’t complain. My garden and all the newly planted seedlings and seeds are surely loving the rain, and before the rain we enjoyed quite a few blissfully perfect days here in midcoast Maine. Warm sun with days in the mid 70s, a cool breeze, minimal bugs, nature’s blooming glory all around: perfect.

As a result of these perfect days, I have some new spring photographs to showcase in this week’s Color Inspiration Thursday. As a treat, and because I couldn’t help myself, I’ll be posting more than two this week. Just a reminder for those of you who are new to Color Inspiration Thursday, I’ve created these palettes using the Play Crafts Palette Builder and my photographs. The corresponding Kona cottons are also supplied by the Palette Builder, so those are listed below each palette.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Plum, Medium Grey, Petal, Cerise, Candy Pink, Pomegranate

Pink, pink, pink. I just love the blooms on this apple tree. They first emerged in perfect spherical pinkness, slowly opening like a rose to unfurl their soft petals into a glorious array. I probably took at least 200 photographs of these blooms over the past week; I just couldn’t help myself! My sister-in-law absolutely loves the color pink, so I think she would quite appreciate a quilt in these colors. The grey is a nice added touch to help smooth out the pinkalicious overload!

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Periwinkle, Deep Blue, Crimson, Deep Rose, Sweet Pea, Avocado

I just had to include another photograph of this tree. The ceramic bright blue bird feeder we have hanging in it contrasts so nicely with the pink blooms and green leaves, creating a lovely balanced palette. I love the inclusion of a dark and light in each color for this combination.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Steel, Palm, Fog, Ivy, Parchment, Medium Grey

Do you see the bee on his way to fill his pollen pouches to overflowing? This cherry tree is a cacophony of sound this time of year, resonating with a deep, constant, humming buzz. I’m hard of hearing, and my hearing is progressively worsening each year, yet I can hear the buzz in this tree loud and clear. It is right in front of our porch, so my kids and I love to sit and watch the hundreds of bees buzzing around us, and listen to their harmonious hum.

To be honest, I was going for a white-on-white palette when taking this photograph, but no matter how white-on-white the tree seems in real life, and no matter how many angles I tried, those blues and greens still emerged. I like the palette, though. It feels soft and gentle to me, and while I’m not typically a pastel person, I think I would like a quilt made with this color scheme.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Baby Blue, Crocus, Hibiscus, Evergreen, Spring, Petunia, Lilac

No collection of spring photographs is complete without lilacs. I used the feature on the palette builder to add more colors for this palette, since I wanted to get a few more purples into the mix without losing that lovely baby blue and the contrasting greens.

What is your favorite spring/early summer flower? Would you plan a quilt around its color scheme?

Design, Life

Color Inspiration Thursday {3}

May 29, 2014 kittywilkin 2 Comments

Today I thought I’d mix up our color inspiration a bit and use photographs from someone other than myself. Were you getting tired of nature and flower photos? I hope not, but either way, this week will act as a little break. I was going through my photo files looking for some good brights (who doesn’t love brights?), and I found a couple of gems taken by my dear friend Brittany from Brittany White Photography. Both photographs are of my daughter, and I love reminiscing to the days when she was such a wee itty bitty girl. And oh, the color!

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Coal, Mushroom, Deep Rose, Crimson, Raisin, Cardinal

This photograph was taken years ago, when Brittany was first starting out her photography business and went by the name of Lucy James Photography. My daughter is exactly one year old in the photo, yet I gasped when I saw it since it evokes feelings of maturity that I had not yet associated with my baby girl. The colors pulled from this photo are both soft and elegant, and I could see them in a comfortable lap quilt draped across a living room couch, or even as a king quilt in a master bedroom suite.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Pool, Breakers, Silver, Denim, Candy Pink, Crimson

And so quickly, she grows. A year and a half later, my daughter was captured wearing my favorite colors, seriously. This is exactly the palette I was seeking when I set out to find this week’s color inspiration, and I’m grateful to Brittany for eagerly agreeing to my use of her photographs in my palettes. Anyone who has been following my latest sewing projects knows that I’m absolutely STUCK on these colors. Turquoise, magenta, a bit of silver (low volume): I’m a happy quilter!

I just love Brittany’s photography; she captures such depth of soul and beauty in all of her subjects. Check out her website or her blog for some more portraiture eye candy, as well as for bits of inspiration and tips (while not specific to quilting, this 6 tips to better photos post is quite helpful!).

While we are on the topic of inspiration, last week I read a blog post that I think any creative person can relate to. Cheryl Arkison of Naptime Quilter wrote an honest and open post about being in a creative slump. This is from the author of popular quilting books Sunday Morning Quilts, and A Month of Sundays, with another manuscript underway! Yes, even the famous quilters get into a slump. Even the big names grow in bitterness and frustration at a continuously cluttered house. I’m not alone in this. There was something releasing in reading her blog post. It helped me to realize that we all feel the daily frustrations and at times get into slumps where creativity just won’t happen, AND that there are steps that can be taken to help emerge on the other side. I asked Cheryl if I could share her list of suggestions for getting through a slump, and she said yes:

– Keep sewing. Keep your muscles moving, your brain activated to the process.

– Finish something, anything.

– Take inventory of the WIPs, admit that you won’t finish some and pass them on.

– Wash the windows, or get them washed. New light, clean light will highlight the path and let the butterflies in.

– Try a new technique.

– Give away a quilt, a finished quilt.

– Say no to a commitment.

– Get up early to sip tea and do nothing in the quiet morning light.

– Colour, paint, or create with your kids.

– Turn off the computer, walk away from Pinterest and Instagram

– Put away the inspirational stack of fabric you pulled out two years ago.

– Sign up for a swap or bee.

– Take a road trip, even if just for the day.

– Have faith in yourself.

I love this list. So many resonate with me, and I think that final tip is so key. Have faith in yourself. For me, sewing and creating in general is an outlet of creative energy and my attempt to make beautiful things daily. If sewing begins to make ugly things, even in my mind, then perhaps it is time to go paint with the kids, put the fabric aside, and open the window so that the butterflies can come in.

I would add “Lay in the grass and look closely at nature” to this list, since getting a close look at the bees busily buzzing from flower to flower renews my awe at the world. And for me, where there’s awe, inspiration flows.

What suggestions do you have for getting out of a slump? Perhaps search for color inspiration everywhere you go? *wink wink*