Color Love is Here

Color Love--that's the name of my newest fabric collection with Marcus Fabrics.  Here's my sample yardage all laid out on my cutting table, ready to be put to work. Oh, my pretties!

So there is already a plan for Color Love--a block-of-the-month quilt also called Color Love. It is a five part BOM with an applique' option, slated to begin shipping June 2014. Ask for it at your local There are two version of the same quilt--one pieced and one with some applique. To makes things even more fun, we have ordered up a bunch of the applique' blocks from a company that does laser cutting. Yesterday I worked on the seven applique' blocks.  It was so easy to just peel and fuse the shapes in place and then buttonhole stitch around the patches. Now, mind you, I am not the most proficient person when it comes to buttonhole stitching, but I did manage to get the job done. Here's a block and some close ups.

Applique is done, piecing is done

The leaves are now appliqued to the vines, so all four of the borders are done. The center piecing is also done, so now I have to put the two together and turn the vine in the corner and add a few more leaves there. This project is moving along nicely. Hope it remains that way.

The "Westminster Project"

And now on to the "Westminster Project". This quilt, which for lack of a better name at this point in time, has been dubbed the "Westminster Project" because the lead fabric and several other fabrics are manufactured by Westminster Fabrics. If that name doesn't ring a bell, then just think of fabric designer Kaffe Fassett, one of their lead designers, and the designer of the lead fabric I'm using.

So . . . the quilt's designed--thank you Electric Quilt Company. The lead fabric chosen, along with a stack of potential running mates. don't they look yummy together?

Now for the next task. The pattern I've designed has a whimsical applique flower block that I plan to fuse and then satin stitch with threads from my bountiful thread stash. I grabbed one of my many rubber trays and pulled practically every thread that I thought would work. Now, how to decide. I don't want my trial and error to take place on my beautifully fused blocks. No, no, no, that will just not do.



Due to some personality defect implanted within me at birth, I realize that I must approach the task of thread selection in a rational, logical, and planned manner. (Oh, how I do hope there are some of you out there with this same condition. For those of you who can throw caution to the wind and just jump right in, I applaud and greatly envy you.) So here's what I did. First I sewed together a piece of my background fabric, a deep burgundy, and a piece of light green scrap fabric left over from the Sunflower quilts. Then I did a test satin stitch of each thread on the background fabric and wrote the name and color of the thread next to it on the light colored fabric. Very systematically organized--very planned--very logical. Time consuming, yes, but I should be able to avoid any gross color errors which would lead to--gulp--ripping out. And obviously, I had so many threads that I had to do two swatch pieces.

So, what of all this test sewing and satin stitching and overly compulsive behavior? Here's how I proceeded. When I needed to satin stitch around a fabric, a pulled the fabric from the stack and folded the test stitch swatch next to it in order to see which thread looked best. In the example in the photo, the fabric is a blue green mottled fabric. What thread choice would you make?

Okay, I've made my choice and picked one. . . I think. I'm off to sew. Satin stitching is not my forte, but a girl has to learn sometime.