Moda Blockheads Day! Time to catch up on a few things. First off, color studies for this week's block, Morning Star from Barbara Groves of Me & My Sister Designs. Are you a supergraphic 70's star outline lover? Or prefer a row of flying geese arrows? Blocky sides? Arrow points towards center with different color corners? Such fun to play with this block and the outline that surrounds the star. This is an awesome block to play with. Thanks so much Barbara. This is my block that I made this week in Winterly fabrics. I decided to make those outlines in the corners the Seafoam color to bring in more of the cool tones in the tree prints in the corners. I liked having a darker green in the center star points in contrast with the Chartreuse sides. Back in the first group, when I showed my block, I sewed it up in Winterly fabrics and I knew I wanted to make a Christmas quilt, but didn't have a plan. I have numerous Christmas quilts but none done from a sampler or from a sew along. It took awhile to think about it but now I have a plan. For the past 2 Moda Blockheads quilts, I've made very structured medallion and linear quilts. I wanted a quilt for this one that felt a little more free-flowing but organized. The star blocks seem like the perfect opportunity for a holiday quilt. You can see my first block I made, my "Community Star" block (group 1, block 8) on my previous blog post. Most of my Christmas quilts have a lot of red color so I wanted this to be more green-focused, using more of the tree/landscape/greenery/bird prints from Winterly. The quilt will use a mix of 6" and 12” green blocks, in a flowing arrangement, with a band of red blocks running as a band through the center. I will also intersperse 6" squares of fabrics from Winterly to show off those fabric design, coordinate with the blocks, and fill in any needed spaces. The Thatched colors that I am using along with the Winterly prints are Thatched Cream 36, Crimson 43, Pine 44, Ocean 144 or Dewdrop143, Seafoam 125, Spring 54 and Chartreuse 75. There is a larger group of greens to go with the larger percentage of the quilt and add interest by mixing the warm (Chartreuse) and cool (Seafoam) greens. Now that I have decided on my plan, I have some catching up to do! According to this layout, I need about 10 of the 12" blocks and I worked on 4 of those. The blocks above are Morning Star, Super Scrappy Star, Bright Star and Shimmer Star. As I do blocks, I keep track of my progress by filling in my layout image. Since I do color studies, I make up these blocks in Adobe Illustrator and can easily swap in my Winterly fabrics for my layout. This helps me see what I am missing and how to keep the balance of color and light and dark. I was a bit late in figuring out my plan and now have LOTS of catching up to do (and I'm sure no one else is in that predicament, right??). I'll share past color studies that I posted in the facebook group along with blocks as I make them here on the blog. This week I made the 4 blocks. The first color study for this week is at the top for Morning Star. The very first block of group 1 was from Betsy Chutchian, called Bright Star. Well, I could have played with this block all day long since there are potentially so many things I could try. I loved the little ribbon like corners and honestly, I think this block is a little busy and I should have limited the number of fabrics and colors I was using. But that is okay since I can balance this out with other, simpler blocks or just the Winterly squares around this. I've also made Super Scrappy Star from Corey Yoder. This was from group 1, block 4. I liked the last of the color studies a lot with the lighter center star and two corners trailing off to darker shades. On a block like this, I am using Thatched fabric and also flipping it to the back side to get that lighter shade of the color (the more chambray-looking ones). I just noticed in the photo that my lower left seams are not matching up so well. Hmmmm. To fix or not to fix? I'll probably end up fixing it... This is last week's color study for Shimmer Star from April Rosenthal. Arrows, checkerboards, ribbons and pinwheels! And yes, stars. My actual block based on the top row, far right, color study image. I like how Thatched Seafoam (backside) and Spring go with that Pine stripe from Winterly. I don't think I'll be getting around the the paper piecing on this block, so I'll post the color study now. This was group 1, block 3 from Brigitte Heitland of Zen Chic, called Stellar Elegance. It sure is elegant! And I love how it can be a split day/night image. For my next round of blocks, I think I will focus on some of the smaller sizes. This shows the scale change between the 12" and 6" block sizes (and this is one of my Community Star blocks). Now that I finally have it all planned out, I get to do the fun part and SEW! Well, the color studies are also a fun part for me as well. I am often surprised by what pops out as I play on the computer. But there is such a satisfaction of seeing those happy fabric blocks evolving when sewing and feeling and working with cloth and thread. Keep up with my progress and share your own projects through my Facebook group "Robin Pickens Sew Happy Community" where you can also ask questions and be in community with other quilters. Hope to see you there! You can also find me on Instagram and Pinterest @robinpickens as well as on youtube.
Happy sewing in the new year!
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I am eagerly anticipating the start of not one, but TWO sew alongs that I am running this year. This is my first time having my own sew along, so I'm going to go ahead and just apologize for whatever funny glitches and things happen on my learning curve. But it is time to start and get more comfortable with doing more video sharing. I hope you will come along for the journey! This also means it is time to open a Facebook Group. This group is for those of you who like sewing with my fabrics and patterns. Maybe you have questions. Or hopefully you want to SHARE pictures of the things you are making with my fabrics and/or patterns! This is that space for sharing and supporting one another. I'll also run the sewalongs from the group page and hope to see lots of leaf blocks popping up as the sew along gets going. Want to join the group? Visit Robin Pickens Sew Happy Community and ask to join. https://www.facebook.com/groups/762206228564958 I will do some facebook lives and then post those to youtube as we get going with the sew alongs. I'll also be running a poll to find out when you like to attend a live feed...mornings? During the week or weekends? I'll also be having a few prizes for some random folks who POST their progress while we sew along. No, you don't have to keep to my schedule. But participation and sharing, wherever you are at, is encouraged! TSo lets talk about LEAF PRESS. It was Lissa Alexander from Moda Fabrics who suggested a leaf sampler. I THOUGHT I was done designing my group of patterns for the Forest Frolic fall collection until she mentioned the idea and then I just couldn't get it out of my head. This might have ended up being my favorite quilt design from the group (although it is still a close toss up with Oak Grove Square). I like the nice lap size and range of leaf types and there is something that feels a little modern as a sampler to me. The number of blocks and variety of leaf types works out nicely to a weekly sewalong where we do couple units a week. We'll be starting at the end of August and finishing up around the middle of October. You will need to buy a pattern. This pattern is in a larger size 8 1/2 x 11" booklet for diagraming all those leaf shapes! Check with your local shops to see if they are carrying it or check my online shop at RobinPickensINC.com. A document with the tentative schedule is in the facebook group FILES. I've only made this particular quilt in the new Thatched Buttermilk background but wanted to mock it up on the computer in the dark brown Mocha color. I like that too! The fabric specifications for Leaf Press include: 13 Fat Eighths for those leaves. Now I'm sure someone will ask if they can use a Layer Cake of 10" squares. YES you can. One layer cake should be enough. It would also work well as a scrappy quilt. Instead of Fat Eighths you can assemble 7 Fat Quarters for leaves. While playing around with the ideas for this quilt, I wanted to try it in colors as well that were NOT about fall. What about a springy palette? Or fall colors in all Thatched? Rachel from Santa Monica Sewing Arts suggested a Christmas palette... On this last one, I've made it more minimal in terms of the variety of colors. The greens are a little accent and the while, washed linen and oatmeal are all from 1/2 yard of fabric. Makes me think of snowy leaves with a layer of thick frost. What if you want to do one of these...or if you have a quilt shop and want to kit some of these versions? I'm including all the specific fabric colors here and they are also listed in the FILES section of the facebook group. If you do have a shop, please fill out and email us the form so we can compile a data sheet of shops that are carrying the Forest Frolic fabric, Thatched fabrics, Thatched Widebacks, bias binding, etc. to share with folks who are looking for places to order. The blue "download file" is a pdf of the specs I am listing below. I'll have more info next week on my monthly sew along, Oak Grove Square. I will do some color studies for that one as well (but not as many). I hope to see you sewing along with me this fall.
One last note...Forest Frolic is shipping NOW from Moda! Yay!!
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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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