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I've compiled blocks into groups to share the updates of blocks 11-30 for the Kinship Fusion Sampler on the 100 Days 100 Blocks sewalong with GnomeAngel. My palette is the Hygge Happy Dance colorway of Thatched fabrics. Missed the post? Check it out here: Kinship in Thatched palettes.  I've had so much fun finding the little photo props to go with my blocks for this project! They remind me of so many special people in my life. My husband gave me those lovely mugs and I think he hit that surprise gift out of the park! And the lovely girl ceramic planter face...I also got one for my mom. She just makes me smile! I'm showing Smoked Paprika, Pink Grapefruit, Green Curry as the warm and spicy color here.  The calmness of the creams and tans has been lovely to sew with. Washed Linen, Toast, Cream and Cocoa. Little squares of cocoa make wonderful pops of contrast.  And pink, pretty pink in soft light shades (Early Dawn) or vibrant energy (Fucshia). These are the moments of girl power and contrast of both bold and soft.  We are a third of the way...keep sewing and enjoy the kinship!
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July has been a busy sewing month! The other sew along I am participating in is the #100days100blocks with Gnome Angel using the Kinship Fusion Sampler pattern. My hygge happy dance color palette is enjoyable to sew with. I'm usually not a brown color kind of quilt person but I love the light Washed Linen color and find the colors feel calming to sew with. These blocks celebrate a modern, natural and simple style and I have had so much fun finding things around my space to photograph with the blocks.   I have to smile at how many times my little items were a gift from someone special or remind me of a specific time or friend. This little person with the plant hair was a treat from my daughter. She is always coming up with sweet ideas and is so thoughtful.  Pinks add some lively pops of color in Early Dawn light pink and Fuchsia vibrant pink. More warm colors of Smoked Paprika, Pink Grapefruit, Green Curry and Olive add spicy color flavor.   Ellie the elephant is another treat from my daughter and the rounded wood cutting board is from my son. They know me well.   Here is the Pink Grapefruit mixed in. Yummy!  These little friends remind me of my dear Roxy and our visitor friend Stevie the cat. She does like to sleep a lot so the expression is fitting.   First 10. Even if it is 100 degrees outside, these make me feel like a cup of cocoa and a snuggle with my dog. Next week I'll share the group of the next 10 or you can watch every day on instagram. Check out the hashtag #100days100blocks to see the great fussy cutting and fun fabric choices others are making.
Cheers!  It's almost here...the 2021 Kinship sew along with Gnome Angel and I thought I'd share a bit of past projects and my plans for this year's quilt! Make sure you scroll down to see the new color combinations!!  I originally did the #100days100blocks in 2017 when we were using Tula Pink's 100 Modern Blocks book. That was lots of fun. I was really excited to see Ange release her own 100 blocks quilt "Kinship Fusion Sampler" for the 2019 sew along and I knew I had to do it! My Thatched basics fabrics were coming out with Moda and it was a great opportunity to play with them. If you are not familiar with Thatched, it can function like a solid or a blender with subtle drawn, nubby lines. It gives the colors a nice rich feel and a little more depth to the look than a plain solid.  My goal was fairly simple- use a limited color palette of white and 3 grays and add in pops of color with pairs of orange, green and teal/turquoise. I really enjoyed making my blocks because the cutting schemes were so logical and efficient and I knew that if I cut a width of fabric strip in a 4.5" size, I'd be using that whole strip in the variety of blocks we were making. 2.5, 4.5, 6.5, 1.5"...it was consistent with a nice amount of play and experimentation. A block a day. I can do that when they are no too hard yet have the right mix of variation. I bought my pattern directly from gnomeangel.com as a download but shops also have a printed pattern. I just saw them at Cozy Creative in San Diego this last week! Links to Ange's shop are at the end of this post.  I used Ange's Kitchen Sink version of laying out the blocks with 1" finished sashing in between the blocks (1.5" cut width). I decided to "frame" my quilt top by adding a thin strip of scraps of the colors I had used (1" cut width for 1/2" finished size) and surround that with a 3" cut border.  I really like the balance of white and color and clean modern look of this quilt.  Even though I pieced the top in 2019, I didn't get around to quilting it till mid way through 2020. I purchased a used longarm Bernina Q24 and had some pandemic self-training using YouTube videos to figure out what I was doing. That is a whole other blog post...but it was tremendously gratifying to get this quilted and bound! The pantograph is Swirl Out Jr by Mike Fountain, purchased from IntelligentQuilting.com.  This is sized to be a twin quilt but with the sashing and border, I can put it across the bed and cover my king bed! I started this sew along again last year, doing a scrappy version of blocks, and started making 2 of each block to made a king quilt. Now I'm rethinking that plan since I probably don't need two of all the blocks if I add sashing. I got busy with other projects so might rejoin with some of those scrappy blocks this year as well (or save them for 2022?)  That brings me to THIS YEAR and what my plans are. I like the layout, the idea of a limited palette with some accents, the distribution of accent colors, and the border additions. So I'm calling this Kitchen Sink Renovation (Ange's layout with a little reno). And since some NEW Thatched colors launched at the beginning of this year, I'm keen to try it with some of those.  This is Hygge Happy Dance because I think of that Danish soothing comfort vibe with these soft neutral warm colors and a little coral to red to pink warmth. This is the version I am making this year. I am currently very smitten with the new background color, Washed Linen, Thatched 158. Since I'm making this color combination, I'm gathering the fabrics to get ready for July 1st. The other colors in this quilt will be 62 Fuchsia, 122 Early Dawn, 185 Olive, 177 Green Curry, 156 Toast, 72 Cocoa, 183 Smoked Paprika, 181 Pink Grapefruit and 36 Cream.  This next mockup is called Midnight Jazz and you could make it with a dark blue Thatched, like Midnight (which is in the new Cottage Bleu line) or Dark Wash Indigo. But Pam at Serendipity Woods, and I decided a Nautical Blue Bella Solid was a great background fabric for this. The Thatched colors are 173 Bluebell, 144 Ocean, 125 Seafoam, 124 Greenery, 103 Apricot, 82 Tangerine, Cream 36, Washed Linen 158 and Toast 156.  Changing the background to White (Bella 200) brings a light and sparkly look to this same color combination in Morning Blues.  And my original, which I'm calling "Winter Turns to Spring" is Bella 200 Off White pared with Grays of 117 Shadow, 24 Pebble, 85 Gray, oranges 103 Apricot, 82 Tangerine, and greens of Chartreuse 75, Sprig 14, Peacock 77 and Turquoise 101.   If you are looking for these kitted and ready to go, then check out SerendipityWoods.com for some kits of each of these color ways. I believe Pam will be sewing along with us. I'll also be meeting with Quilt Emporium in Woodland Hills CA to go over the colors and they usually have all the Thatched colors! I'm happy to share any information of shops with Kinship/Thatched kits so let me know. I hope you are joining in the #100days100blocks sew along with GnomeAngel using her Kinship quilt pattern. See you posting in July!   Visit Gnome Angel's website/blog for more info on the sew along and answers to questions you might have at https://www.gnomeangel.com/100days100blocks-event-information/ or purchase a pattern in her shop https://shopau.gnomeangel.com/collections/books-patterns/products/pattern-kinship-100-block-fusion-sampler My dear Roxy has decided she likes this quilt. It's her colors. She must be touching it and making sure it is hers...at all times.  When I saw the Kinship Fusion Sampler created by Gnome Angel and Skyberries I knew I wanted to try it in Thatched fabric, my new basics line coming out with Moda Fabrics (shipping in November 2019). I was wanting a color-play exercise that used a limited palette and a select group of the fabrics. I like this line for fillers and backgrounds, but they deserve to hold their own in a quilt sew-along! I love the modern feel of many of the blocks, playing with geometry in often asymmetrical layouts. I thought the woven illustration of Thatched would work well to add just a little depth to the blocks.  I actually jumped in about a week into the sew-along, which is typical for me. I WANTED to do the sew-along but I get distracted and think I don't have time to add ANOTHER project. But then I see people posting on instagram and I can't stand it anymore and jump in late.  My original plan was to make the quilt in mostly grays and white with a tiny pop of color. Maybe just the heart block in orange? I selected three grays from Thatched to use- the Gray 85, Pebble 24 and Shadow 117, giving me a light to dark range of grays. There are actually 5 grays in this first release of Thatched but I wanted to keep it simple. I've never made a black and white quilt before or a black, white and gray one, so this was a new exercise in restraint.  fBut I guess at heart I am really a COLOR GIRL and I needed more than just one pop of color! I loved the idea of just orange with the quilt, but the addition of greens to the mix felt so much more appealing and fun. I really like how the combination of Chartreuse 75, Sprig 14, Peacock 77 and Turquoise 101 play together. It was a tough call to decide if I should add the dark green Pine 44 to the mix but I left it at the original four greens.  For the oranges I used Tangerine 82 and Apricot 103. Again, tempted to add more with Maize gold but I pared it back. Every time I use the oranges it feels like a jolt of orange juice waking me up!  Usually I keep the color story of greens or oranges within a block but once in awhile, one escapes and jumps in another color block! Quilt block 29 is an example of that with it's little orange square. And block 82 with one orange corner to liven up the group! (And yes, sometimes I go out of order and make some of the later squares in advance if I have the right pieces cut)  When I got to day 25, I layed out what I had on the floor to get a feeling for them all together. For the planning of this sampler, I used the coloring sheet that Gnome Angel has on her blog at https://www.gnomeangel.com/?s=colouring+sheet. It was tremendously helpful in planning and playing around with the colors. You need to purchase the pattern to get the coloring sheets and I am not posting my colored in one since that would be a violation of the pattern copyright. Yes, my helper was involved and let me know she was bored of this whole thing.  There is one thing I wanted to mention about this particular pattern for a sampler. I really appreciate that the sizes of the blocks you cut are very consistent so it is efficient with fabric and makes it easy to precut pieces. For example, a lot of pieces might be 2 1/2" wide so you knew that by cutting that size strip, it would be utilized for a lot of smaller pieces. I could go through and count out how many pieces I would need at certain sizes or how many flying geese were needed at the same size and then make them in bulk. This really cuts down on time and makes it enjoyable to move through the blocks faster and with more efficiency and economy. I thought it was a very smartly planned out sampler that way!  I have been loving the blocks I've been seeing on instagram from other people sewing along. I particularly love seeing some of the fussy cutting and cute fabrics. It is a different feeling to do a sampler with a limited palette and limited fabrics and I like the new muscle that is flexing in my mind to explore the contrast and color relationships. I like how clean and modern this feels to me. But I can't lie, a part of me wants to just throw one of my big flowers into one of these blocks!  I'm guessing the next time I share these blocks on the blog I'll be done or at least close to done. Follow me on instagram to see more progress with the Thatched blocks at @robinpickens. Follow along to see all the great blocks on instagram with the hashtag #kinshipfusionsampler or #100blocks100days2019 and thank you Angie @gnomeangel and Bec @skyberries for a great sewalong! (Also, I am dying over Bec's blocks made with Heather Ross fabrics- fantastic!!)
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About ROBINDesigner of colorful florals for Moda fabrics. Modern to transitional quilt designer. Illustrator, sewist, crafter. I am proud to be a designer for Moda Fabrics!
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