It's Pink

It's Pink, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

This is a bit blurry but I think you can get the idea.

Quilt above made by Betty Carpenter and Kim Shalom. From the 2004 Dallas Quilt Celebration.

I guess the Dallas quilt show is coming up soon, actually. Anybody going?

Purchases

Pink fabric purchases, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

So here is all the pink fabric I've been buying lately. (I include the one piece of Freshcut with the ivory background because it is the pink colorway, even though it's not terribly pink overall.) Three pieces are Freshcut, several are batiks, and... I frankly don't even remember what the rest of them are. Mostly they are half-yards, so this is a LOT of fabric.

Bouganvillae

Bouganvillae, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Quilt above made by Barbara Swinea, North Carolina. From IQF 2004.

If I ever make that pink quilt I keep talking about, I think it will be like this one - that is, not the pattern (I have no idea about that yet) but that it will use all different shades of pink, from light to dark. I like this quilt a lot.

Blind Man's Fancy

Quilt from December 2002 QNM, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

"Fancy This" made by Linda Cordell (and friends) of Arlington TX.

I was skimming through an old issue of Quilter's Newsletter (Dec 2002, to be exact) and I found this quilt, which I love. The odds that I ever would make it are very, very slim, though. Too many tiny triangles. Hmm, maybe I could come up with something similar but simpler? (I will probably come up with some other idea that's completely different by the time I end up making my pink quilt, in any case.)

Kathryn's quilt

Kathryn's quilt, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I just bought a lot of pink fabric from the Fat Quarter Shop, because I've still got it in my head to do another pink quilt. The quilt in my picture was my second quilt - like the first one, it was nine-patches - and it was made for the child of a college roommate. Reportedly Kathryn loved it dearly and carried it around for years - but apart from that I've never thought it was an entirely successful quilt. Kathryn may have been satisfied with it, but I wasn't. I've learned a lot about things like value and contrast since then. (Those fabrics that don't quite read pink bother me, particularly.) Also, this was the first quilt that I chose the fabrics for, and it's a little too matchy for my taste nowadays. I really am a scrap quilter to the core.

Think pink

Y'know, maybe I need to have one more stab at doing the all-pink quilt I've been threatening to do for years, because I am totally fascinated by this knitted pink tank cover. (And that's tank as in military, not the kind that's attached to your toilet!) I think maybe I am not done with the obsession with pink. And heck, the last one-color quilt I did came out pretty good, so it could be a series!


Later: I have been scrolling through my archives for nearly an hour, trying to find the link to a sort-of similar thing that I knew was there: the quilted missile cozy. Despite the name, it's a much less homey thing, though.

Mom - watercolor seminole

Mom's seminole quilt, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

(Is seminole the right word for this? I've never done one, and I'm not 100% sure. I'm pretty sure it's a seminole variation, at the very least.)

This is one of the fairly rare quilts that my mother did straight from a kit, although she did do a good many blocks of the month, which amounts to the same thing in the end, doesn't it? Anyway, she and my aunt went to the Sisters quilt show somewhere around 5 years ago - I think I was invited but I was too broke at the time - and she bought this kit there. If you like it enough to want your own, I'm pretty sure it's been in the Keepsake Quilting catalog very recently, although I couldn't find it in my current copy. You might still be able to get it there.

(I need to dig in my mom's quilt pictures, and scan some of them. I'm pretty sure she took a lot of pictures in Sisters that year.)

Pink!

Mom's hollyhock quilt, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

(Like Anna Nicole, my mother liked pink.)

In other news, I ordered a Tutto bag from Planet Patchwork. Every time I have tried the cheap route with wheeled things, they break, so I decided it was time to get the good stuff. So at least I can take my sewing machine to spring retreat in comfort.

My aunt Linda and I spent the afternoon playing with my mother's fabric. She had an awful lot of it, since she made so many quilts. I brought home two big under-the-bed boxes full, and I was picky. I could have taken a lot more. (Although we didn't even finish going through it all, so there may be more, in the end.)

Enticement

Journal Quilts
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

("Enticement" because I figure I need to put up pictures to entice some of y'all to come to IQF. The quilts aren't all traditional, really they aren't!)

Pictured above are journal quilts by Patti Gamburg, from IQF 2003.

Cranberry & pink swap

pink & gold batiks
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Here's the fabrics I bought to try out for the swap. (I think I have too many of the lighter pinks, but I mostly was just buying them because I liked them. And at least one of them is already in the zipper quilt!) The scrap of fabric we were sent for a guide is at the top of the picture. I don't have any green here but I may well use some. I think I have a piece of dark green holly batik someplace, although I haven't been able to find it so far. I just added the dull gold, and also the darkest cranberry piece, both of which I really love, so I'm definitely going to be using those. I just have to find a balance that I like.

I think I have found a block in the 9-patch star book that I like - or rather, I made up my own block. It's units 3, 21, and 37, if you have the book or the CD and care to look. I haven't actually tried them all three together yet, but I'm pretty sure they will work well together.

I have three Carol Doak books, but this is the first one that has come with the patterns on a disk so that you can print them out (and print them in different sizes, if you want to). That's a very nice extra.

How pink is too pink?

1/4 of a pink star
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Now you have to understand, I do like pink. I wear pink all the time. I love pink roses. I made an entirely pink quilt once (although it was my 2nd quilt, and I have to admit that I don't really think the execution was completely successful). But I don't know, this just goes over the line somehow. This block is definitely too pink. And I am starting over with some other block and some other color arrangement.

(I also have to admit that I couldn't get that damn diagonal seam to match, and that figured somewhat into the decision.)

This is the "Connecticut" block from Carol Doak's 50 Paper-Pieced Stars book. As I said the other day, I ordered her 9-Patch Stars book, and it has now arrived from Amazon, and I think it looks much more doable. I will post the picture of some of my fabric, too. I am going to use gold and possibly dark green as well, to avoid the "too pink" problem.

Think Pink!

Social Climber Roses
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Made by Melinda Bula. From the exhibit "In Full Bloom II: Floral Quilts Honoring Helen Pearce O'Bryant" at the 2005 International Quilt Festival.


Updated to say that I got a very nice e-mail from Melinda Bula, who made the quilt above. Turns out she has a website, melindabula.com. (And she didn't even berate me for the fact that I apparently have her quilt turned sideways in the picture! See here.)



When I have something specific I want to talk about, I tend to pick a quilt picture that goes with my theme, have you noticed? I'm slippery that way.

Today the theme is "pink" (as you may have guessed!) - I had the link to the Quilt Pink site back when I posted the picture of the Moda fabric a month or so ago, but the site wasn't live then, and now it is. Just so you know. What they've got planned sounds like fun!