Category Archives: Design

Color Inspiration Thursday {2}

May 22, 2014 kittywilkin 1 Comment

Yesterday when I checked the forecast for today and the next three days, it said “rain, rain, rain.” We woke up this morning to a bit of drizzle, but blue skies. By the time I got home from dropping my daughter at preschool, it was sunny and gorgeous, as it remained all day. Needless to say, we spent the day outside!

Now that night has fallen and my kiddos are sleeping, it’s time for me to keep my word and post my second weekly Color Inspiration Thursday. As I explained last week, on Thursdays I plan to post a color palette or two that I have created using the Play Crafts Palette Builder and my old photographs. I will also include the corresponding Kona Cottons since the Palette Builder lists them for me!

My hope is that these palettes help inspire you, maybe spur an idea for a new quilt or sewing project, or even just brighten your day and trigger those happy aesthetically-driven feelings. Even if you didn’t get to enjoy a sunny day filled with spring-time joy, new blooms, and keeping-the-bugs-at-bay breeze, here’s your dose of color:

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Cadet, Avocado, Sweet pea, Pansy, Wisteria, Magenta

For this palette, some of the Kona matches were a bit of a stretch (specifically the colors on the outer edges–do they look like cadet and magenta?), but when looking at the Kona colors together, I almost prefer them to actual colors pulled from the photograph.

palette with kona cotton coordinates — The coordinating Kona cotton thumbnails are shown above. I like the cadet–a little bluer, and the magenta–a little brighter!

Regardless of whether you go with the range of purples from the photo, or the Kona colors chosen to match, I could see these colors becoming a quilt for my late Grammy June. Grammy was the sole quilter in the family, and my inspiration to begin quilting. She loved purple! I have to say: purple is certainly growing on me.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
White, Avocado, Grass green, Stone, Sienna, Wasabi

I’m partial to this palette since it includes both white and gray, which find their way into my quilts ~~always~~ very often these days. I feel like this palette has a country, down home feel. Do colors do that for you; do they illicit a specific “feel”? They definitely do for me!

Design, Paper piecing, Patterns, Quilting

Friday Finish: Lupine, a Foundation Paper Piecing Pattern

May 16, 2014 kittywilkin 11 Comments

I had never seen lupine before traveling to Maine, but now that I live here they are among my favorite flowers. There is a depth and richness to their color that force me to get really close and admire their intricacy. They are very advantageous growers, almost invasive, and the sheer numbers of lupine seen along roadsides, in fields, and in happy gardens make the color incredibly apparent.

Photo by Steffen Ramsaier, found on Flickr

Early in my sewing days, I was trying to think of a gift to make for my mother-in-law. I immediately thought of lupine, since they are her favorite flower. (If you have children, do you know the book Miss Rumphius? aka the Lupine Lady? Well that’s my mother-in-law–okay, it’s not really, but it certainly could be!) I had recently found paper piecing and wanted to make her a paper pieced lupine pillow. The only problem was that all of my searches for paper pieced lupine patterns came up empty.

Flash forward a month or so, when I discovered that I could design paper piecing patterns. A lupine flower was one of the first sketches I did. Talk about complex! I really wanted to get the heart-shaped petals into the pattern, but I knew it had to be fairly simple to be able to be pieced. I drew out a few sketches, chose my favorite, and began to try to break it down into logical pieces. My brain instantly scrambled. I had to put the pattern aside, and work on a few different projects for a week or two.

paper piecing process — It all starts with the graph paper and sketch.

After that much needed breather, I picked up the lupine again one evening and smoothly worked it into numbered paper piecing sections. After a month or so of fine tuning and testing, the pattern is ready!

Don’t you love it!? I wasn’t sure about my fabric choices at first, but now that the block is done, I think they were perfect! They blend together just enough to give the flower depth without detracting from the congruence of the bloom.

This is not a beginner paper piecing pattern in that there are many pieces and a few sharp angles. There are only simple joining seams, though; no y-seams! If you have a good sense of paper piecing, this block shouldn’t be too tricky. It took me about 4 hours to complete and measures 10″ square (10.5″ with seam allowance).

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve watched this lupine block’s progression. For those of you who don’t follow me yet, here’s a peek at the process from my Instagram feed (@nightquilter). Of course these are taken with my iPhone during my late night quilting foray, so pardon the blur!

Lupine paper piecing progress — Little by little, it comes together.

The back is my favorite! Stragglers hanging on after I’ve removed most of the paper.

The pattern will be available in my Payhip Pattern Store by the end of today, so now if you need to make your mother-in-law (or mom, sister, brother, cousin, friend, or yourself!) a lupine pillow, wall hanging, table runner, bag, etc. you can get right to it!

This particular block will soon become a long-awaited Lupine Pillow for my mother-in-law. I’d say it was worth the wait.

This is my exciting Friday Finish, so I’m linking up!

Crazy Mom Quilts
TGIFF

Design, Life

Color Inspiration Thursday {1}

May 15, 2014 kittywilkin 5 Comments

I love color. I’ve always loved color. There’s just something about bright, coordinating, complimenting, or even sometimes clashing color that makes me happy. I’m a very aesthetically driven person, so I often admire the color combinations that appear around me.

Colored pencils aesthetically arranged — You store your colored pencils in color order, too, right?

I’ve written before about the Palette Builder 2.1 on Play Crafts in my post Playing with Color Palettes, and I haven’t grown tired of playing with the Palette Builder to create unique palettes from my photographs. In fact, I’ve gathered quite a collection of color palettes. After a few gray sunless days, I need a burst of color to brighten my day. Both this need for color, and a recently found post called Weekly Inspiration on Nini & The Sea’s blog have inspired me to join in with the weekly inspiration idea. Each week, I will post a color palette or two that I have created using the Play Crafts Palette Builder and my old photographs. I will include the corresponding Kona Cottons since that is one of the coolest features of the Palette Builder in my opinion.

Autumnal color palette from a busy bee on a sunflower. — Bright autumnal color palette from a busy bee on a sunflower.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Seafoam, Cedar, Mahogany, Black, Wine, Lipstick.

I love this palette because it includes black AND a spot for low volume, both of which find their way into many of my quilts these days.

Summer blue color palette — Summer blues!

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Lake, Cadet, Evening, Azure, Avocado, Moss.

I just love those blues, and this photo reminds me of summer evenings on the coast of Maine. I hope you enjoyed these bursts of happy color!

What is your favorite color combination?

Design, Paper piecing, Patterns, Quilting

Work in Progress: Lupine Paper Piecing Pattern

May 7, 2014 kittywilkin 13 Comments

Now that I’ve got my printer figured out, I’m back to testing my new Lupine Paper Piecing Pattern. It’s a 10″ block with lots of small bits, but no complicated joining points. I’m excited to test this out and finalize the pattern, since I really think it will be a beautiful block, truly representative of lupine. Lupine grows all over Maine, and during early June you can see it sprawling gorgeously alongside highways and roads, as well as in fields and gardens. I’m working on a Downeast Paper Piecing Series, and this lupine is an essential piece!

When designing paper piecing patterns, I always battle with the balance of visual accuracy and simplicity. I want the finished pattern to look unmistakably like lupine, but I also want it to be simple enough that people will want to create it. With the lupine design, I knew I definitely wanted to get the heart-like flower petals into the pattern.

The recognizable radiating leaves also had to make an appearance, albeit simplified.

I’m really happy with how my pattern turned out! I think it looks like lupine, leaves room for lots of color play in the flower, and is fairly simply pieced despite the many small bits. There are a few tricky angles, but using the printer paper foundation paper piecing method, I focus on being generous when cutting my fabric bits and haven’t had trouble yet.

I’m not overly wild about my fabric choices this time around; they seemed like they melded and contrasted well when I looked at the stacks of fabric, but once paper pieced, I’m not sure it’s enough contrast for my liking.

Mental note: when choosing fabrics for Lupine Paper Piecing Pattern, go bold!

I’ve only completed one small section of the Lupine so far, but I will be sure to post my progress as it comes along. I’m hoping to have this pattern posted in my Craftsy Pattern Store within the next couple of weeks, just in time for lupine season here in Maine.

This pattern came about when a search for a paper pieced lupine pattern turned up nothing. There are many paper pieced flower patterns, but I could not find lupine! The only solution was to design it myself.

What’s your favorite flower? Would you take the time to paper piece it into a pillow, table runner, etc.?

Since it’s Wednesday, I’m linking up with
Work in Progress Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

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Design, Quilting

Playing with Color Palettes

April 24, 2014 kittywilkin 5 Comments

I have been having so much fun with the Palette Builder 2.1 on Play Crafts. Having just finished and gifted my biggest work in progress quilt, I’m looking to start a new one (of course!). I’ve not yet created a quilt focused on a particular color palette, but I’m thinking it may be time to try one!

Check out some of the palettes the Play Crafts Palette Builder 2.1 has created from my photographs:

Can you tell I have spring on the mind? I love the earthy violets that came up on this palette (above). I also couldn’t resist making palettes out of some of the rich, vivid blue photographs from my knitting progress photo shoot.

The busy bee photo didn’t result in as blue-heavy a palette as I would have guessed, but I still like it. I might add a bit of yellow in to represent the bee.

I also love that the palette builder will give you the names of the Kona cottons that match your palette! Talk about making it easy on us quilters!

While visiting New Jersey, I caught up with some old friends. My friend Sara was showing me pictures of her Kitty Cat (I will be honored that she named her cat Kitty, which is also my name), and this picture of hers just screamed to be made into a color palette:

I was serious when I said I’ve been having a ton of fun! Here are some of the palettes I’ve been making from some of my old photographs:

Splash of summer!

I made quite a few palettes for the coast of Maine. For the first one, the palette builder originally chose colors Kona Mushroom and Charcoal to represent the blues, but since I think the blues of the gorgeous mussel shells should dominate more as blue, I moved the color dots around until they landed on Kona Steel and Nautical. This is a great feature of the palette builder; you can tweak your palette until you love it. I really like the resulting palette.

I love all of the coastal palettes, but I was really itching to see a bit of color. I love the effect the kayak has on this color palette:

Which palette is your favorite?

Design, Quilting, Stash Building

Stash Building

March 26, 2014 kittywilkin 3 Comments

As a new quilter, my stash is far from extensive. In fact, I’m trying to complete some of my works in progress with the fabrics I’ve already bought before taking on new, large projects. My stay home mom budget just doesn’t fund extensive stash building, no matter how tempting the fabric; and trust me, some of those new fabric lines are mighty tempting!

Today I was visiting some local craft shops in search of super bulky yarn for an awesome new project (more on that soon!). Out of the corner of my eye, I happened to spot this adorable Alexander Henry “ABC With Me” fabric… on sale!

That got me thinking about fabric: I don’t have many purples in my little stash, and I’m working on designing a new paper piecing pattern of lupine, a gorgeous flower ubiquitous in Maine. They often are purplish, and I will need a few bits of purple to test the pattern. I decided to get some bits (1/4 yards) of purple, and a lovely swirly blue for the background/sky.

I think they will look lovely as a lupine flower.

My latest paper piecing pattern-in-progress. Lupine are gorgeous wildflowers ubiquitous in Maine.

Don’t mind the wrinkles and shadows in my fabric photos; I was trying to quickly snap some photos while keeping my kids off the fabric–no easy task! Here they are, “helping”. Maddie is reading the fabric while Max tries really hard to resist flopping on top of the whole pile.

Design, Patterns, Quilting

Circling Gulls Taking Shape

February 18, 2014 kittywilkin Leave a comment

People talk about “the paper piecing bug” and how once you try paper piecing, you are hooked for good. I think I must have somehow fallen into the hive of paper piecing bugs, because I am HOOKED! I love how precise you can be, I love that you can create fabric pictures of just about anything, I love the promise of possibility. Soon after sewing a few paper pieced projects, I started dreaming up new patterns. Leave it to Pinterest to inspire creativity. I somehow stumbled upon this tutorial, and within minutes had my squared notebook in hand.

As with just about anything, I don’t start simple. I don’t think it’s within my brain function. My first paper pieced design was for violets. As you can see, this is not the simplest of designs, but they look like violets!!

My brain continued to swirl, and next up came an idea for seagulls circling around a starfish, or maybe a crab. I finally decided on starfish since it would be much easier to create as a pattern, and the design began to come to life.

I walked through the old-school process for this pattern completely before finding Inkscape, and my first (second if you count the little 4″ star from my art quilt) sewn self-designed paper pieced pattern will be these circling gulls. The fuzz from photocopies of photocopies aren’t the crispest, but the pattern is proving to be quite functional!

I finished sewing the first of four blocks while at a Paper Piecing class at my local quilt shop, Fiddlehead Artisan Supply in Belfast. I can’t wait to complete the last three blocks to see how it looks all together!

Design, Quilting

Delight in the Little Things

February 18, 2014 kittywilkin 3 Comments

At the end of last year, I joined a 12×12″ Art Quilt group on Facebook, just in time for the word “delight”. The idea behind the group is that they post a word each month, and members design and create a 12×12″ art quilt inspired by that word.

I am always inspired by the tiny bits of beauty in nature.

Thinking about “delight”, the first thing that came to mind was “delight in the little things”. I started brainstorming what that would mean in terms of a small quilt. I have a penchant for color gradient aesthetics, and since 12″x12″ is relatively small, I thought this would be a perfect time to make a quilt out of 1″ squares. I have always delighted in the little amazing miracles found in nature, so I knew the natural world had to be a part of my quilt. Sunbursts and the play of light on the world, reminiscent of laying in the grass looking up at floating seeds glinting in the sunlight as they swirl in the wind (an activity frequented by my kids and I during the warm summer months) was the ultimate inspiration for my quilt. Enough talk. Here’s my process:

After cutting all the 1.5" squares, the next task was to lay it all out and find a pleasing gradient. — After cutting all the 1.5″ squares, the next task was to lay it all out and find a pleasing gradient.

2014-01-19 21.55.39-1 — I created a 4″ paper pieced star to fit into my design. It’s now for sale on Craftsy!

2014-01-23 21.26.39 — Matching seams like a boss! I continued to swap squares in and out as I got generous donations of blue scraps from friends and quilting buddies, until I finally settled on an arrangement I liked.

2014-02-02 16.26.59-2 — Attaching the final row… Pins right next to each seam seemed to help me line them up the best. I definitely befriended my seam ripper for this project!

2014-02-02 16.33.24-2 — Next I planned out the applique placement, and started to think about hand quilted embellishments.

2014-02-05 15.35.17 — I played with the binding since I wanted to continue the gradient and not completely frame it in. I really like the way it turned out, and the little burst of yellow on the bottom corner might be one of my favorite elements.

2014-02-05 15.35.32 — Silver embroidery thread paired with dark blue blanket stitch gives a nice feel of light glinting off the silhouetted dandelion seed.

2014-02-05 15.35.43 — Expect the unexpected. The yellow bursts of color jump from a near-black binding.

2014-02-05 15.35.58 — I opted for silver hand-quilting around the sunburst star.

Of course, I wanted to photograph the finished quilt during daylight hours to get the most from natural light. As a stay home mom of two little ones, cameos from the kids were bound to happen. Maddie decided she wanted to help me display the quilt in the best light, and then while photographing smaller details, Max decided to help by flopping right down on top of the quilt!

I am really happy with how this quilt turned out, and I’m definitely going to be making more art quilts. This particular quilt will be donated to the Altruistic Art Show hosted by The Kindness Project in Bangor. Like it? Go enter for a chance to win it while benefiting a good cause.

Design

Bring on Inkscape

February 17, 2014 kittywilkin 1 Comment

This post was written a few nights ago, before The Night Quilter blog was live.

———–

Don’t get me wrong: I love graph paper! There’s something about sketching out a design and working through the logistics of turning it into a paper piecing pattern with nothing but your squared notebook, a pencil (and eraser!), a ruler, and your swirling mind. However, turning that creation into a share-able, let alone potentially sell-able, pattern using the old school graph paper method is less than ideal.

It works! But it's a LOT of work! — It works! But it’s a LOT of work!

Enter, Inkscape.

While I type this post, inkscape is downloading onto my computer. Inkscape is a free vector graphics editor that will hopefully allow me to get started in learning computer-based paper piecing designing.

At the very least, with a cost of FREE, it won’t break the bank. Woot woot! Hopefully learning to use it will be easier than my old school method: draw, refine (read: erase, redraw, repeat), photo copy, cut, tape to plain paper, draw 1/4 seam allowances, photo copy, arrange, create word document with necessary text, attempt to format around anticipated paper piecing pattern drawing, print, cut and paste pattern onto word printout, photocopy again, approve? Scan and convert to pdf. Talk about noise! All of those photocopies of a photocopy of graph paper ends up with quite a fuzzy pattern. Functional, yes. Aesthetically crisp, no.

Bring on Inkscape!