The Quilter's Field Guide to Colour part 3

Since today was a rainy day and it was Saturday, I played with more colour and continued making more bear paw blocks representing the rest of the seasons.  I did the spring blocks yesterday in this blog post.  It was a lot of fun rooting through my scraps (and a few special fabrics from my stash) and finding the right colours and moods for the swatches I chose to represent the various seasons.  Here are the results of today's fun.

(Click on the photos to enlarge.)

First half of the colours I picked for the four seasons

Second half of the colours for the seasons

Winter bear paw block

Fall bear paw block...I couldn't decide which colour to use for the paws so I did two.

Here are the summer blocks.  I made a mistake and cut too many paws so I cut more background and focus fabric since you can't have too much summer, right? ☺

Here are all my blocks so far.

The Quilter's Field Guide to Colour 2

This month's colour lesson from Rachel Hauser's book was linked to the colours of the seasons.  Take a look here for the first post on these exercises.  We had to take 8 different colour ways (one was neutrals) and choose a swatch from each colour to represent the four seasons.  And, then take the choices from the current season to make one or more bear paw blocks.  This is definitely more difficult that it looks at first glance!  First of all, there are all the decisions on sorting the colours into the proper groups.  Is this particular swatch purple, pink, red or orange?  Or maybe neutral?  I finally sorted all the colours into warm and cool groups first. I even got my colour wheel out to help me sort them out!  It was amazing matching up some fabrics to the spring row and finding the perfect ones!  These scraps were left over from a quilt I made for my granddaughter Emma called, Fancy Forest.   I ended up making four spring blocks using the same center focus fabric but different paws.

(click on the photos to enlarge)

First four colours

Second set of four colours

My rows of colours minus the ones used in this exercise

This focus fabric fit well with the green and pink and "sand" that I chose for my neutral

Loved how this fabric went so well with the spring fabrics (except the purple ☺

My four bear paw blocks.  Amazing how different that center fabric looks with the different coloured paws.

the blocks with last month's blocks

If I have a bit of free time before next month's exercise, I may try more blocks from the other seasons.

A quilt for my niece

My niece got married in November and I put together Canadian blocks from the 401 quilt run that I participated in with three friends in 2016.  There were 14 shops to visit all along Hwy 401 which runs through south western Ontario.  This shop hop features shops east of Toronto.   We had a great time on our trip and two of us collected the block kits with a Canadian theme.  I set the blocks on point after making two more blocks from leftovers from the generous kits.  I found some black with cream maple leafs which worked well for the setting squares and triangles.  This works up quite quickly as there are no borders to add.  It was again quilted by my neighbour Chris Bogart with the maple syrup pantograph.  Wishing Karen and Brent many happy years together!

(click on the photo to enlarge them)

There wasn't quite enough backing left from another quilt but I made it work by adding a map of Canada panel.

The finished quilt.

This quilt was also quilted by Chris Bogart using the "maple syrup" pantograph.

This picture shows the colours more accurately.

Wedding Quilt for my nephew

My nephew in BC was married this past summer and I finally got his quilt in the mail together with my brother's Christmas quilt this past December.  For Jamie and Deneice, I decided to do a Canadian quilt with my large stash of Canada fabrics.  I love the way this one worked up.   I used 48 strips 2 1/2" wide.  Quilted by my friend Chris Bogart who does long arm quilting and lives right across the street! (click on the photos for larger views)

Finished quilt

Lovely quilting pantograph called maple syrup

The poppy fabric is one of my favourite Canadian fabrics

Some little houses fun....

I recently got sidetracked with trying out a pattern I bought a year and a half ago.  I had done Cluck Cluck Sew's Suburbs pattern as a lap quilt in 2016.  I spotted the mini pattern on a quilt trip and always wanted to make it.  Our small guild is doing a house challenge to make 100 houses, so I thought I'd try this pattern out to see if I liked the size.  I couldn't decide on the cool or warm colour version so since it was a small quilt, I made both 😀.  Love how they turned out.  They are the perfect size to fit into my little seasonal stand....bonus!

The cool colour version with snow on the ground

This house print has been in my stash for years waiting for the right project.

The warm version which reminded me of a sunset

I tried some straight line quilting that I learned in Jacquie Gering's class last fall.

The Quilter's Field Guide to Colour

I recently bought "The Quilter's Field Guide to Colour", written by Rachel Hauser.  This is a very interesting book with colour swatches that you can cut apart and use to work on the colour exercises in the book.  She has a blog (click here).  She has started blogging some posts to work along with the book and try out making blocks using the colour exercises.  Blocks can be posted on Instagram, but since I don't have an Instagram account and can't open one on my desk top, and only have a cell phone for emergencies, I thought I'd blog my experiences in going through the book.  I'd highly recommend the book if you'd like to learn more about colour theory and how to choose colours with more confidence and explore different options. 

The first exercise involved choosing a warm and cool purple and a warm and cool green.  My choices were #74 Plum and #80 Iris in the purple and #125 Grass and #118 Clover for the green.

my choices for the first exercise

my choices at the top and Rachel's choices underneath

the first two blocks

I'm looking forward to the next exercise.  By the time we're finished, I might have enough bear paw blocks to make a quilt!