On my bucket list of quilts has always been a 'Dear Jane' quilt. But, I'm going to call mine 'Dear Jeanne'. In my line of women of my family there are four of us with the middle name of Jeanne; and hopefully, some day (but not too soon) there will be a fifth generation named Jeanne. She can then have this quilt made by her Great Grandmother, Sally Jeanne.
So, I'm in the planning stages. It will be in the format of a 'Dear Jane' -- a sampler of small blocks. The original quilt contains 169 blocks (13 blocks by 13 blocks plus the border); I'll be doing well to make 49 blocks (7x7). The designs were drafted 4 1/2" in size originally; mine will be 5 inches. I'm in the design and drafting phase right now using designs of blocks I have used in quilts over the last 30 or so years rather than the designs from the original quilt.
I'm also pulling fabrics from my 30-year scrap stash to establish a color story. I'm thinking purple, pink, blue, black, gray, and white.
I made a couple of blocks to sample the size and color.
Yuk! Don't like this one at all.
I'll refine the color choices as I progress. For instance, I'm throwing out that pink in the corners of the star block above. Actually, I think I'll throw the whole block away!
So, here is the same block with different fabrics.
I'm dying to exchange the purple for red; but I promised myself no red or brown this time. I feel it is so important to get the color story right for a sampler with scraps quilt to control the busyness.
It must be time to step back a couple of days; let the colors percolate; and the quilt might tell me what to do. Maybe a teal instead of purple; or possibly break my rule of no red this time.
Currently, I'm hand quilting a couple of tops; so there won't be any finish action on this blog for awhile. I plan to take it slow on the 'Dear Jeanne' blocks, too -- maybe two or three a week. You can expect some in-progress reports on those in the future.
I'm joining the following:
Love Laugh Quilt for Monday Making
Cooking Up Quilts for Main Crush Monday
Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday
Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social Wednesday
Quilting Readers Garden for WIPS Be Gone Friday
Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Can I get a Whoop Whoop Friday
Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday
6 comments:
I agree with you about getting the color story right on sampler, or even just scrap quilts. One of the last scrap quilts I started I stashed away because I used way too many different colors, shades, styles, textures and I don't like the finished blocks. I'll pull them out again sometime to see if I can salvage them. I should have gone looking for a color story!
Don't throw the block away. Mail it to me, and I'll put it in one of my scrappy leader-ender quilts for American Heroes! I actually like it. ;) dezertsuz at gmail I like the second one, too, and the fussy cut leaf center. I think if you stick with the purple, within a few blocks you will like the results. Those will be great colors together.
I like the purple. I also think teal or red would look nice though so I'm really no help!
It's going to be gorgeous!!!
Color is one of the reasons I have so much trouble with scrap quilts. It's really an art to get the right colors in the scraps to make it work. I like your second star - that pink did jar, but it's a great block now. Thanks for sharing!
ooo, love these deep blues and purples. Those colors are hard to find.
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