Pink and Red

I don't know why but I've become a bit obsessed with the color combination of pink and red. I look around for examples of them together. Neither are favorite colors of mine. Could it be a hold-over from Valentine's day? I'm just so interested in how they sort of vibrate off each other. Separately they've always seemed to me to inhabit two different realities. True pink manages to be both fluffy and shiny. Red is THE aggressive color. But together, at least right now, they are so interesting. Like loud but intricate music, a big orchestra of color all by themselves.

Jane Sassaman

I am besotted by Jane Sassaman's quilts and fabric. Of course I experienced the quilts first. They are a unique combination of botanical accuracy, or maybe botanical sensibility, and pop art color.



Later she began designing fabric, and while I loved it, I couldn't imagine what I would do with it. Then came the Prarie Gothic line and I decided I really didn't care if I could come up with a use or not. I just had to have it.



Her blog Does have several suggestions... and bunches of Prarie Gothic fabric is coming to my house next week!

Library Quilters

The Library Quilters started meeting again in January. Before the holidays I had started a Ruth McDowell daisy-patterned quilt. It is on my lists of quilts I want to make and I started out, picked up speed and put together about half of the blocks I need -- and then I lost steam.
It is a paper-pieced project and paper piecing feels halting to me. I love the uniformity that it creates but I get bored with the "fiddly-ness" of it. I've been thinking about making templates and converting it to a classic piecing project and trying to chain sew it. I used to really dislike using templates but I seem to have found a new patience with the process.
This brings me to a struggle I have in general with making quilts. I know one of the reason I, and likely many people, find quilts so compelling is their sheer size. Bed-sized quilts are a great big canvas for color and design, but that much size in means a lot of piecing and a lot of time and I have a lot of quilts on that list.