Project Quilting 15.2 - Sky Color

The theme for the second challenge of 2024 is Sky Color.  But we can't use the typical sky color - blue!  Well, we can use blue, but it has to be less than 10% of the colors in the project.  This time of year, 'less than 10% blue' accurately describes the sky in my area most of the time! We actually get fewer sunny days here than they do in the Pacific Northwest, which is known for it's rain.  I definitely don't want a gray, dreary project! So sunrise/sunset colors, or night sky colors seemed to be my options.

When I did my entry for the "Silhouette" challenge in 2022 (PQ 13.2), I used the colors of the sunrise.  (Well, for me it was more like sunset, since I am hardly ever up in time to see the sunrise ^.^!)  Even though I love those colors, I didn't want to repeat that color scheme in another project.  Instead, I decided to do a night sky with northern lights.

The question was, of course, what to make, and how to incorporate those colors.  When I was searching for images of the Northern lights, I discovered that the aurora are most commonly green, but there are variations depending on the intensity of the solar winds, the composition of the charged particles in the magnetosphere and the altitude at which the charged particles react with the atmosphere.

Image courtesy of space.com

What struck me in all the images was the flowing ribbons of greens, blues, violets and even reds and pinks! It reminded me of a bargello quilt, so that's what I decided to make.

I've never made a bargello quilt, so that lead to another bout of internet surfing. I found a few sites that had instructions, so I figured that it might be pretty easy to pull off a small one in a week.   

I decided early on that I would only use fabrics in my stash for my PQ projects.  I have a medium size bin of solids that was given to me, so I decided to use those.  The only drawback was that I didn't have enough of the clear vivid colors that I've come to associate with the aurora borealis.  I did have pastels, so that is what I used. I reasoned that maybe not all northern lights are vivid, but the vivid ones make the best photos, so that is what you usually see on the web.   I also had some midnight blue and inky black, which I used to represent the night sky.

I used the tube method, where you sew all your strips together, then sew the first strip to the last one. Then you flatten the tube on your cutting table and cut across into varying widths.  This gives you a bunch of fabric strips that are sewn into a circle.  

You then use your seam ripper to remove the thread between two of the segments of the circle, which turns it into a strip.  Each time, you move up or down one segment so that the colors shift when you sew them together.  I'm sure that I'm not explaining the technique very well, so if you want to try it, search the web for Free Bargello Quilt patterns.  Missouri Star Quilt Company has a video tutorial on You Tube, as does Sewing with Abeygale.

Since this was my first time with bargello, I made some mistakes and it didn't quite turn out the way that I first envisioned.  For example. I should have used a few more strips, because my end result was somewhat too long and not quite wide enough.  I solved that problem by piecing an extra column from the scraps. All in all, though, I think that it turned out OK.

Since the aurora is mostly green, I used a variegated green thread to quilt wavy lines to simulate the the flowing ribbons of color.  

Pastel Northern Lights Bargello

Project Quilting 15.1 - Bird House

Bird House?  I have to admit that I wasn't exactly inspired by the theme.  But then again, not everyone has to like every theme.  I toyed with the idea of making an actual 3 dimensional bird house and using it for a tissue box cover, but I really wasn't excited about the idea. 

I then thought about doing an online search for bird house blocks.  Again, no excitement.  

When I first started quilting, I bought a number of resource books - yes, the real physical, hard copy hold-them-in-your-hands books.  They mostly sit on my shelves gathering dust, so I decided that it was time to start using them again.  

I found a block called 'Wren House' in Better Homes and Garden's 505 Quilt Blocks book, which was published in January 2003.  This book has a lot of what I'd call pictorial blocks.  I'm not sure that's the correct word, but what I mean is that most of the blocks are images of things (houses, flowers, animals, etc.) instead of traditional quilt blocks that are based on shapes.  

I don't want this to turn into a book review, but if you decide to look for the book, I want you to be aware of a few things.  On the plus side, there are lots and lots of good blocks. The down side is that the book doesn't really give instructions for making the blocks. It has general quilt making information, but it doesn't give dimensions for the blocks or for the pieces thereof.  It does number and letter the parts of each block so that you can figure out what in what order to piece or applique them. Also, all of the illustrations are about 4 inches square. That's not really a problem, as long as you can figure out how to increase the blocks if you want them larger.  

My printer/copier doesn't have the capability to resize, so I grabbed a pad of graph paper and a ruler and played around with proportions.  I managed to make a decent looking representation of the Wren House block that is about 8 inches across.  I added a little length because I wanted the house to look like it was high enough off the ground to keep a cat from jumping up onto it ;>.

I decided that, like many of my prior PQ projects, this was going to be a potholder.  

I dug into my scrap bin and found a cute blackbird print that I used for the house.  A mottled blue print for the background and black Kona cotton for the roof, pole and the entrance and I was done.  I quilted it with a simple straight lines because I like potholders to bend easily. The binding is more black Kona cotton.

Another PQ project done!