Tag Archives: design

Color Inspiration Thursday {17}

September 4, 2014 kittywilkin 1 Comment

This week’s color inspiration brings us back to the garden and the late summer blooms that abound. There always seems to be something flowering in our garden, and even with the harvest of fruits and veggies swelling, now is no exception. Color palettes are created using Play Crafts’ Palette Builder 2.1 and my own photographs, taken today.

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

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of these beauties. Bright golden yellow black-eyed susans are scattered throughout our garden and fields and seem to flower for much of the summer. While I can’t see myself making a quilt that’s entirely yellow, it’s an awfully cheerful color palette.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Charcoal, Purple, Magenta, Violet, Dark Violet, Cerise

This palette features my favorite seasonal colors: radiant orchid and magenta. I love the range of purples in this palette and can definitely see it making its way into a quilt of the future!

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Palm, Laurel, Coal, Crocus, Iron, Raffia

This year I’m thrilled that I got my dahlias into the ground in time for flowers. The gorgeous blooms have been brightening our kitchen table for the past week or so, and they just keep coming. These colors are stunning together, but my favorite part about this photo is the inch worm explorer; do you see him?

Quiltspiration 365

For those of you who are looking for quilty inspiration for every day of the year, I’ve teamed up with a group of quilting bloggers to provide exactly that. Search for tag #quiltspiration365 on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to see new inspiration each day, or visit these Quiltspiration bloggers:

On Friday, Chelsey from Nini & the Sea shared her inspiration from France.
On Sunday, Caroline showed how changing the color completely changes the look of your quilt.
On Monday, Laura shared a tiny paper piecing pattern inspired by a morning walk.
On Tuesday, Jennifer shared a photo mosaic inspired by the bright and cheery colors of summer.
On Wednesday, Brenna shared how her love of textiles inspires her quilting.

Design, Life

Color Inspiration Thursday {16}

August 29, 2014 kittywilkin 1 Comment

Welcome to Color Inspiration Thursday. It’s a two-posts-in-one-day kind of day here, so I will keep this one aesthetic. Color palettes are made using Play Crafts’ Palette Builder 2.1 and my photographs. Your inspiration this week comes from two very different locales. The first photos are from more of my garden harvest. We have had tomatoes galore, which means fresh tomato on everything, salsa, salsa, more salsa, and tomato sauce!

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Black, Poppy, Chocolate, Smoke, Taupe, Paprika

Add a helpful two-year old and your palette changes a bit:

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Black, Taupe, Earth, Coal, Paprika, Mahogany

The next photos are from Holbrook Island, off the coast of Maine.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Coal, Steel, Ash, Black, Windsor, Pewter

Sometimes simple, “plain” things are beautiful. I found this roof-to-wall transition quite aesthetically pleasing, and I love the combination of violets and seafoam greens that result. The seafoam green is a bit lost in the Kona matches, but I might tweak my fabric choices if using this palette in the future so that the green is more prominent.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Basil, Grass Green, Moss, Spring, Espresso, Steel

With beautiful beaches on the outskirts, deep dark pine forest on the inside, Holbrook Island Sanctuary State Park is a gorgeous place to explore. The forest floor was covered with moss and lichens, which created another little world best seen from an inch or two away while laying on your belly.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Steel, Charcoal, Ash, Buttercup, Deep Rose, Denim

These rainbow strings were washed up on the rocky beach, which adds a fun pop of color to an otherwise stony palette. I kind of love this one!

Which palette is your favorite this week?

Design, Life

Color Inspiration Thursday {14}

August 15, 2014 kittywilkin 3 Comments

Color is everywhere. Sometimes, the coordination of complementary colors is what attracts your interest; sometimes the play of very different or unexpected colors stands out; and sometimes the complete saturation of one color is striking enough to draw your eye. This week’s color inspiration palettes come from color-rich scenes from a fairly common structure: a lighthouse. As always, my photographs are created into palettes using Play Crafts’ Palette Builder 2.1.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Pewter, Earth, Cocoa, Poppy, Sienna, Taupe

Last weekend, my family and I took a lovely day trip to Owls Head, Maine, and began our day with a visit to the Owls Head Lighthouse. When entering the lighthouse, the red stairs circling up the red brick interior struck me as very beautiful. Having my camera ever at the ready, I took a few photos, carefully keeping the sunspots out of the frame. Subtle, earthy reds.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Delft, Ash, Everglade, Dresden Blue, Black, Chestnut

Once at the top, I was greeted with another beautiful sight. The bright blue sky and blue ocean, reflected through and by the lighthouse light made a peacefully blue-heavy scene. Ideally I would have loved to wait until some tall, gorgeous sailing ship was in the background, but there’s only so much one can do when two little kids are waiting. Beautiful lighthouse blues.

Do you prefer palettes created primarily from a single color, or those featuring multiple colors?

Search facebook, instagram & twitter for #quiltspiration365 for a quilting inspiration for every day of the year (more on this soon!)

Design, Life

Color Inspiration Thursday {13}

August 7, 2014 kittywilkin 7 Comments

Sometimes you see a burst of color so amazing, you just can’t let it go. That happened to me yesterday, when my cousin Kayley posted these amazing photos of glass sculptures created by Dale Chihuly, seen at Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle, Washington. Kayley is visiting our aunt in Seattle, and her photos are just amazing! They are taken with her camera phone, but the back-lit glass sculptures look so vibrant that I feel like I could reach out and touch them. Most of the photos are detail shots taken of a suspended 1,400-piece, 100-foot-long sculpture.

Part of Dale Chihuly's suspended 1,400-piece, 100-foot-long sculpture in the Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle, Washington. — Part of Dale Chihuly’s suspended 1,400-piece, 100-foot-long sculpture in the Chihuly Garden and Glass in Seattle, Washington.

I think you will agree that these photos just begged to be turned into quilt-inspiration color palettes!

These beautiful palettes are created with Play Crafts’ Palette Builder 2.1 and photographs taken by my talented cousin Kayley Gallagher.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Tangerine, Lipstick, Ocean, Royal, Cedar, Citrus

I absolutely love this color palette! Consisting almost entirely of primary colors, it is bright and cheerful. I think it would make a great kids’ quilt.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Mahogany, Poppy, Lipstick, Plum, Surf, Hibiscus

This palette makes me think of the purple hat ladies. Purple hat ladies make me think of fun-loving, bold and beautiful women who do what they want without concerning themselves with what others may think. Can you tell that I hope to join their ranks someday? What fun! Passionate reds and purples, with a bit of rich mahogany make this another vibrant palette.

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Black, Sable, Cappuccino, Shadow, Parsley, Honey

This palette isn’t colorful, but sometimes we need to focus on neutrals. This earthy palette has a good balance of neutrals and achromatic colors and would make a lovely subtle quilt or foundation for a quilt with a splash of additional color (maybe a bright Leprechaun green to pull from that subtle kona Parsley?) Plus, what an amazing glass squid sculpture!

Corresponding Kona cottons from left to right:
Slate, Lime, Wheat, Lipstick, Rose, Corn Yellow

I’ll leave you with one more rainbow color palette to cap off this week. This photo features all the colors of the rainbow, which is well represented in the resulting palette. I don’t know about you, but I’m on a definite rainbow gradient quilting kick lately. You can’t go wrong with rainbow!

Special thanks to Kayley this week for letting me use her photographs to help inspire more colorful creative works of art. Enjoy!

Design, Life

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, 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

Bring on Inkscape

February 17, 2014 kittywilkin 1 Comment

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

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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!