Welcome back!! Today’s guest post is by Daisy over at Ants to Sugar. Go check out some of her uses of Blue’s in her projects, I love her introduction mosaic.

Challenge / Give-away

This month’s challenge is sponsored by two great companies.

 

$20 Gift Card from the Fat Quarter Shop

 

 

6 Fat Quarter bundle of Art Gallery Fabrics Denim Studio (oversized FQ 18″ x ~28″). They are so super soft and easy to use….you will love them.

To win:

• link up the project, whether it was a  block, small project like a pillow or mini quilt with blue fabrics and adding 1-2 other colors by clicking on the blue button below.
• Link-up closes at 7pm March 31st.
• A winner will be chosen at random and announced in next month’s blog post.

I am super excited about this month’s color – Blue. I was actually surprised at how often I use it in my own quilts. When exploring my projects, I realized that it is the easiest color, for me, to mix with others….whether it is cooler or warmer palettes.

At the moment, it is trending too as a featured color with fabric lines/bundles. You have lines such as Cotton and Steel’s Bluebird Bundle, Alison Glass Handcrafted Indigo’s, or Indigo Collection by Michael Miller, just to name a few.

Here are a few of my own project examples, that I hope inspire you all.

Blue + White

I love that porcelain and tiled freshness of blue and white. It reminds me of my visit to Portugal. In this first project, I used Alison Glass Handcrafted Indigos.

For this mini quilt (36 x 24″) they provide such a great richness that stands out even more when using just a white background (actually Alison Glass White on White Sunprint text).

This bundle provides a great graduation of shades of blues (monotone) which you could also mimic with your blue prints from your stash. Here are a few, I pulled for you.

1. Hawthorne Threads; 2. Dear Stella; 3. Lizzie House; 4. Ed Emberly; 5. Carolyn Friedlander; 6. Savannah Lockie; 7. Art Gallery Designs; 8. Wee Gallery; 9. Karen Lewis

Blue + Low Volume

The new Denim’s that are coming out by Art Gallery Fabrics and Robert Kaufman are so soft, it’s like sewing with ordinary quilting cotton. I recently bought some of Art Gallery Fabrics Denim Studio and really wanted to pair it with some Maze and Vale Low Volumes prints. These low volume prints are white based (or neutral) with hints of red, yellow (triadic=blue, red, yellow), grey, and black in them. I love how the denim strips (of varying blues) pop with the low volumes.

Blue + Cool

One of my first ever projects, mixed various shades of blue, with aqua’s, greens and low volumes (analogous palette). I did not want to mix the cooler colors in this project, as I think it gave a crisper design aesthetic. This pillow would also work, though, mixing up the cooler colors and separating using the low volumes.

This next project was actually inspired by a photo of Crater Lake (by Anne Sullivan from Play Crafts). Nature can provide such great color palettes. These blues (Kona Oasis and Prussian) work well with the yellow-greens (Kona Wasabi, Pickle) and the neutrals (Kona White, Shadow).

Blue + Red

Not quite opposites, the a triadic combination, yellow and/or red also work well with blues. We saw a yellow example last month, here is an example of pulling in red. There is not a lot of red in this pillow but the mix with blue makes the red pop in this project.

Monthly Tip

The environment around you offers so much color inspiration, that usually we miss seeing on a daily basis. I find that holidays offer the best time for me to open my mind and see things differently. Go through some of your holiday photos, something caught your eye for you to take a photo….you may find some great color palette inspirations.

Here are a few of mine that are great blue based palettes.

[Photo of buildings along the High LIne, New York]

[Photo of 42nd Street Subway Station Wall Art, New York]

[Photo of Street Life in Ericeira, Portugal near Lisbon]

Monthly Resources

Book: Interaction of Color by Josef Albers
Tool: Rainbow Color Selector Wheel (or search on google, or visit an art store to find)

Monthly Challenge

To make a project, whether a block, small project like a pillow or mini quilt with blue fabrics and adding 1-2 other colors. [UPDATED 07 March]

To help get you started if you are not sure, this block is a great way to use up scraps you may have. You can use this tutorial to make a block, a cushion or a mini quilt.

Come back here for the Guest Post Introduction and Link-up around the 2nd week of the Month (~15th).  The prize this month is:

• A $20 Gift Card from the Fat Quarter Shop
• Simply Color: Blue by Vanessa Christenson
• Blue inspired FQ Fabric Bundle

Winner (from our Yellow Challenge)

Is….Kate who blogs at Chromakate. Kate, I will be contacting you shortly to get your details.

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More details on how the series and posts work can be found in the Blog Series overveiw.

Our first guest on this colour blog series is Melanie Tuazon. Melanie is a quilter and designer who lives in New Jersey. She blogs at melintheattic.com and posts on Instagram as @melintheattic. She is a former president of the North Jersey MQG and has had quilts in the Quiltcon 2015 and 2016 shows. Her quilts can also be seen in the Winter 2015-2016 issue of Stitch and the Quiltcon 2016 issue of Modern Patchwork. Her quilt is this month’s MQG Quilt of Month, which is fantastic!! Check out her blog or the MQG site (if you are a member).

“I love playing with color in quilts because my feelings about the colors change throughout the process. It lets me develop a relationship with a certain shade or hue, and how it can shift depending on the colors that are adjacent to it. I never even liked yellow much before I started quilting, and using it in my quilts made me fall deeply in love.”

Her post on her process and yellow can be found here.

Challenge / Give-away

This month’s challenge is sponsored by two great companies.

The first is Robert Kaufman who is providing the winner 1 yard Highlight, the Kona Cotton Solids 2016 Color of the Year.

Also, the Fat Quarter Shop is providing a $20 gift card.

The Challenge this month,  is to make your own 3 x 3 mosaic palette of  (9) prints, that features yellow as the main color (I recommend at least 1/3 of the palette). Please post the mosaic, that is linked to either:

• a blog post explaining your process/inspiration (feel free to grab the widget above to display on your blog),
• or to an Instagram pic (using the url),
• or a Flickr pic (using the url).

Add your mosaic by clicking onto the button below, and a winner will be announced after 9pm Tuesday 23nd February. I hope you all have fun.

(Note: I use Big Labs Mosaic Tool to create the mosaic. To get the image URL right click on the image and “Copy Image Location” and paste it into the tool).