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Selvedge Colors

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Have you ever really looked at the edges of the fabric you buy before cutting them up and discarding them? I’m sure you have, and if I asked you what was there the most common answer would probably be: the name of the fabric company and the fabric line. Many of you would also mention the “color dots”.

These dots contain each of the hues (colors) used in that fabric and are another great “palette” to use when choosing colors for a quilt (a topic familiar to all who’ve been reading my blog recently). To read a short and informative post about these dots click here!

Some very innovative quilters have actually made quilts from these tightly woven strips, and I’ve always been intrigued by the ones I’ve seen entered in quilt shows. It’s amazing what you can find on the internet. I searched for “making quilts with selvedges” and found oodles of fun sites. Click here for a great video on this topic from Bryan House Quilts.

At the Butterfly Threads Quilting site I discovered a woman who is wonderfully addicted to making selvedge quilts. She’s made them into baskets, spools, log cabins and more. Click here to be inspired!

That being said, I’ve come to realize that one of the purposes of this week’s post is to find out if there is anyone out there who is as totally unobservant as me!!!

While at retreat with my friend Laura a few months back, she was talking about some fabrics she had purchased with creative color dots – wait, what?

My response: “what are you talking about?” She told me she’d send me a photo of some of these selvedges, and here it is (thanks Laura):

What fun! I especially loved the trucks. So I went through some of my more recent purchases and, much to my surprise, found some delightful edges:

Mushrooms on a Timeless Treasures critter print
Winter motifs on two coordinating Christmas flannels by Maywood Studios
The State of Wisconsin on a shop hop fabric by Primitive Gatherings

And my personal favorite – compasses on a colorful map fabric by Timeless Treasures:

I love it! Who knew these were hiding in my stash? Did you?

Will any of you admit to being as surprised as I was to know about these “creative dots”? Please feel free to comment if you dare 🤣.

Do any of you save selvedges? If so, have you made quilts or other projects with them? I’d love to see photographs of them. Please email them to me at .

Choosing a Color Palette From a Photo

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I did a bit of web surfing and found a great site for picking colors out of a photo. It’s called the Image Color Picker and you can find it at https://image-color.com/. This is the image you’ll see when you go to their site:

It was so easy to use. I simply dragged my photo into the box just above the palm tree pic on the site, and it opened up with the color palette already created.

It “chooses” the colors (hues) that appear in the greatest quantity, so black/brown is “dominant”, but just look at the beautiful palette below that. We can easily go to our stash, or our favorite quilt shop, and pick out fabrics in these colors, knowing they will work well together in a quilt. Here’s another one:

Once again – a beautiful collection of hues for a quilt at the bottom. Since the bright “pops” of color in the photo are in smaller quantities, they don’t show up in the palette, but that doesn’t mean a bit of bright orange or yellow can’t be added!

Wouldn’t this make a great palette for your next Christmas quilt?!?

I must admit, I’m having a lot of fun with this site!!!

And here’s a photo Laurie sent me last week, along with it’s palette:

A beautiful collection of colors from just a single leaf!

So, I decided to look through my quilts and do things a bit backwards to give you an idea of how the colors around us could be used in quilts. This first image is of a bunch of leaves I found clustered together on my deck after a rain (isn’t God’s mastery of color amazing?), and the main colors pulled by the color picker site:

This quilt uses fabrics in this palette, plus a few of the brighter colors in the photo to spice things up 😁.

And here’s a palette taken from a tree in my backyard, followed by another of my favorite Autumn quilts:

I don’t really see much of the violet color from the palette in the photo, but it’s ok to leave out what doesn’t work and add a few of the brights.

This is just a tool to get you started. I hope you have some fun with it!

And, since I’ve been sharing photos, I can’t resist a few of Sommer and Trey jumping in the leaves! It’s been a beautiful Autumn and the leaf pile in our yard was huge!

Oh No – No Snow!

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I received a number of responses to last week’s post from readers in areas where there is no snow. Then I ran into a friend locally who had the same concern and I realized the problem … I live in the woods and, even though we’ve had a mild, warm, low-snow winter for Wisconsin – our trees are keeping me in plenty of snow to snow dye. I guess I hadn’t really noticed the lack of snow all around (duh). Here’s the current view from our deck:

This is the field across the road and my friend (and website designer) Di’s beautiful farm:

It’s hard to believe the contrast.

If you have no snow, do not despair. There is such a thing as “Freeze Dyeing”. Just go to the Milwaukee Art Quilters blog: http://milwaukeeartquilters.wordpress.com/page/2/ and scroll down to the directions in the September 25th post.

Just in case you’re dyeing to see the results from last week’s adventure – here are the burp cloths:

Plus Daddy and Mommy’s shirts and baby-to-be’s onesies and bibs:

The tie dyeing was a hit and the results were such fun!

Now I’d like to share my snow dyeing saga and what I learned along the way.

1. I waited until the snow was almost completely melted:

2. I dumped the bins onto the snowy yard:

3. I removed the bins:

4. and hung everything to drip and dry in the warm shed:

5. Then it was off to the laundromat for 2 cold water washes (with Color Catchers™ to absorb the excess dye) and a ride in the dryer.

And here’s the snow dyed results:

I was really quite pleased, but I didn’t like the way the fabric sat in the “muddy” water at the bottom of the bin while the snow melted. Thanks to Johanna for her comment about elevating the fabric with an old oven rack or cookie rack. Other suggestions were inverted deli containers along the bottom of the bin or even leftover chunks of pvc pipe.

I’m anxious to try this out on some of the leftover hunks of light value fabric in my stash. New life for old fabric! But I’d better get at it before the snow’s all gone!

Tie Dye Baby

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Today I threw a baby shower with a twist for my daughter-in-law Betsy: she invited her girlfriends and we tie-dyed onesies, bibs and burp cloths. We even did t-shirts for Daddy and Mommy. What a blast!

The original idea came from Kathie Boucher with inspiration from Laura Krasinski (both friends from the Milwaukee Art Quilters). I purchased tie-dye kits from Joann Fabrics. Grandpa Mike was kind enough to make room in his barn. We covered the floor and tables with plastic and then the fun began.

Above center is Betsy and my granddaughter to be 🙂

Artists come in all sizes.

The girls did a great job, but they didn’t get to see the finished product yet (it’s all still damp and under plastic).

After everyone left I decided it was time to try my hand at snow dyeing. So I mixed up a few new bottles of dye, removed my old, stained sweatshirt, grabbed a few pair of bamboo socks for the grandkids in Washington State and phase II began.

1.   I misted everything with water and bunched it in the bottom of 2 bins.

2.  Grandpa shoveled the bins full of snow.

3.  I patted down the snow and “made snow cones” (Annabelle is watching and wondering what I’m doing).

Theoretically the dye melts into the fabric and wonderful designs occur. So here’s the before:

Next week I’ll post the pictures of all the “afters”!

Have you had any group dyeing adventures?

Adding Color to My World II

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Years ago I made a quilt for a challenge entitled “Name That Tune”. Can you guess the title of my quilt? 

 

I was a teenager in the 70’s, so if you didn’t get it, you probably weren’t <g>. The name is “Color My World”. It was a slow dance song by Chicago. It may be difficult to see on this photo, but in the void under the world I hand quilted the Creator’s hands in metallic thread so the sub title is “He’s God the Whole World in His Hands!”

I thoroughly enjoy choosing colors/fabrics for my quilts. I’m not much of a cook, but when I start pulling bolts and come up with a good mix I sense that it “tastes good”. This may sound a bit weird (I’ll accept that :-), but I actually begin to salivate when I feel the color combination coming together. It’s the only way I can describe it!

I think “drooling” over fabric is more common than you might think! If this version of quilting excitement has passed you by, here’s a suggestion for getting your taste buds tuned up:

I’m often inspired by color combinations in nature. What a wonderful week to be conversing on this topic! The trees (many maples) in my yard have finally turned. This hasn’t been the most colorful Fall, but I have some pictures from past Autumns and here’s one of my favorites:

My recent trip to Alaska provided some great shots. This mushroom was growing in Hazel’s front yard!

Or how about the phenomonal hues God’s paintbrush created on the Kenai River:

 

If you have a picture, but aren’t quite sure how to pull the colors from it there is a great website for doing just that. Go to: http://kuler.adobe.com/. On the right side under “Welcome to Kuler” click on “Adobe TV” for a short and simple tutorial. They’ll show you how to upload your image and choose a color scheme from it in a way that’s easy, quick and fun 🙂.

PS I will not be posting for the next 2 weeks, as Wendy and I will be taking a group of quilters to Ireland! I’m sure I’ll bring back more photo inspiration and I’ll be anxious to share some with you when I return.