FIGURING OUT COLOR RELATIONSHIPS AGAIN!

You have probably heard the furniture/accessory adage that 'buy what you love; and it will all go together when you get it home'.  Does this also apply to color and fabric?  I have spent years trying to figure out the relationships between colors with some success, but with a whole lot of failures, too.  It just doesn't seem to come natural to me - it takes a lot of practice.

Strange, I know, but two of my favorite colors are brown and black.  Do they go together?  I decided to do a pillow experiment using scraps of wool that I had on hand.  I gradated brown and black, light and dark to see if they blended together.

For years, I used this technique when making quilts from scraps.  Below is one of my old work sheets from a quilt I made. I would pick out a couple of fabrics (shown upper left in photo below) to use repeatedly to unify the quilt; then I chose fabrics from my stash to add.  I would lay them out in gradation; then squint my eyes or photograph them to see if there was something that stood out in a bad way.  I'm sure in this particular quilt I eliminated bright yellows, and used the brighter red as an accent.

This is the quilt that resulted from that exercise.  It ended up having 96 different fabrics in it.

Even after many, many of these worksheets/quilts, I still struggle.

So now do I think black and brown go together?  Yes, but maybe it's because I just love the two colors.  (By the way, I'm terrible at picking out paint colors - I need more practice!)

Check out the following blogs for lots of inspiration:
No Minimalist Here for Thursday Open House
The Shabby Creek Cottage for Transformation Thursday
The Charm of Home for Home Sweet Home Friday
Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday
Funky Junk Interiors for Saturday Nite Special
The Dedicated House for Make It Pretty Monday
Cozy Little House for Tweak It Tuesday
Primp for Primp Your Stuff Wednesday
Ivy and Elephants for What's It Wednesday

ANOTHER WOOL PILLOW

With all of the political stuff  -- to say nothing of the endless baseball and football games -- on TV recently; I've needed some handwork to do in the evenings to keep my sanity.   Bob usually controls the remote!  So, I started another wool applique project for a pillow.  I really didn't intend for it to be a Christmas design, but this is what it ended up to be.

 I used scraps of recycled wool from Goodwill that were left over from previous projects.

 I've been asked if my pillows are for sale; but, sorry no.  I'm terrible at production sewing -- once the prototype is finished, I'm ready to move on to something else.  There aren't any patterns available either --  I just make them up as I go.  For years, I made quilt patterns for publication in books and magazines; and now, that I'm retired from doing that, I don't want to think about if something is patternable, etc. etc. There are some advantages to being old and retired.

Previous wool applique projects can be seen here and here.
I'm off to Goodwill to find a suitable garment to recycle for my next project -- there's still a lot of football (plus, now basketball) on television to endure!

Check out the following blogs for inspiration.  They never disappoint!
Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphosis Monday
Coastal Charm for Nifty Thrifty Tuesday
Cozy Little House for Tweak It Tuesday
The Vintage Farmhouse for Creative Things Thursday
No Minimalist Here for Thursday Open House
 Have a Daily Cup for Share Your Cup Thursday
Common Ground for Vintage Inspiration Friday
Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday
Funky Junk Interiors for Saturday Nite Special

PILLOWFYING, ETC. ETC. ETC.

 Did you know that you can still purchase flour in a cloth sack?  A friend alerted me that the Cortez Milling Company of Cortez, Colorado sold flour at our local City Market/King Soopers/Kroger grocery store in 5 or 10 pound bags.  I thought goods sold in cloth sacks was a thing of the past!

Of course, years ago all kinds of things came in cloth sacks.  When I cleaned out my parent's house, I found several empty sacks from local products that they evidently valued enough to save for future use.

A LARGE SACK THAT HELD 100 POUNDS OF POWDERED SUGAR!

A SACK FOR 2 POUNDS OF GRANULATED SUGAR.

THIS HELD ONE POUND OF GRASS SEED.

ANOTHER HUGE BAG THAT HELD POPCORN SEED.

I made a pillow for our screened-in porch out of the flour sack -- I thought the blue bird graphics were great!

 It is almost still too cold to sit on our porch, but I'm sure it won't be long now until we can enjoy it.

It was an interesting week around here as I tackled the learning curve on my new sewing machine.  I decided that this pillow would be a good first project on the new machine.  After sewing on the same old machine for 40-plus years, I knew it frontwards and backwards.

But with the new machine, I kept needing to stop and look things up in the instruction book -- things as simple as how to change the needle position, etc.  It was slow going and quite annoying at times, but I'm getting there.  For this pillow I figured out the cording, the zipper foot, and the general lay of the machine.  Next up will be the buttonholer and the walking foot.  Sounds like more pillowfying in my future!!

I'm joining the following parties this week.  Please check out these blogs, and thank them for hosting.  These ladies do a lot of work so that we can party together.

Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphosis Monday 

Smiling Sally for Blue Monday

Coastal Charm for Nifty Thrifty Tuesday

No Minimalist Here for Thursday Open House

The Charm of Home for Home Sweet Home Friday

Common Ground for Vintage Inspiration Friday

Funky Junk Interiors for Saturday Nite Special
A Southern Daydreamer for Outdoor Wednesday

T-SHIRT MORPHED INTO A PILLOW

A couple of years ago while we were in Paris, we went to this department store called 'Galleries Lafayette'. The architecture was amazing.

While there I bought my granddaughter a sparkly, Paris t-shirt. She came bounding in the other day with this pink and bling t-shirt on. After I commented that she had just about out-grown the shirt; she said, "But, I love it sooooo much!"

So, it was decided that it would live on in a pillow. I found some fabric that coordinates with her shams and comforter and added them to the knit of the shirt. This is the result:

I cut out the label and put it on the back of the pillow.

She was excited today when she came after school to find her new pillow.

This is a good solution for those much-loved t-shirts that just won't disappear!

A couple of hints:

When combining knits with a woven fabric, it helps to stabilize the knit with an iron-on interfacing before sewing to your fabric. This eliminates any stretching that might occur.

If you don't want to spend the money for a down pillow insert, or even for a quality fiber-fill insert; check the pillow section at Wal-mart. I found this 14" x 20" travel pillow to use for the insert and it was just $2.00. You certainly can't make it for that money; and they are great for teen-age rough and tumble!

I'm linking to Donna's Saturday Night Special
on Funky Junk Interiors.

and

Susan's Metamorphosis Monday
on Between Naps on the Porch.

Check these two blogs out for inspiration beyond belief!!

MET MONDAY

Time for Met Monday hosted by Susan at Between Naps on the Porch. All winter I have been wanting some wool pillows for my living room, but everything was way out of my budget. So I headed to my local Goodwill and found this Ralph Lauren skirt for $2.00.

It was a beautiful skirt; looked like it had never been worn; and was 100% wool. It was a size 4 (I haven't been a size 4 since I was 4 years old), so decided it would make a good pillow!

I threw the skirt in the washer with some Woolite, let hang til dry, then cut out the lining, zipper, and waistband. My trusty old sewing machine was just waiting to metamorphose a skirt into a pillow. I added some cording I had plus three shell buttons from my grandmother's button box to jazz it up a bit.

I'm pleased with it, and am now on the hunt for more Goodwill 100% wool skirts!

Now, go over to Susan's blog (Between Naps on the Porch) to check out all of the other great projects this week.

Thanks for stopping by,
Sally