February Work Plan -- Trying to Decide

I was plowing through all of my kits and trying to decide which one I wanted to start and complete in February, keeping Valentine's Day in mind and my love of all things pink! I pulled three out....


This has been in my kit bin for a couple of years; my friend Dawna Harrison made it, I loved it and asked her to kit it for me in the same fabrics....

The second one was purchased just a few weeks ago, again at Bolts in the Bathtub, the shop Dawna and her sister own. My friends Liz and Lori were working on this quilt and had it up on the wall, so I had to make it, too.....

The pattern is Winter Pinwheels from Tiffany Hayes of Needle in a Hayes Stack and these are the fabrics I'm going to use to make it....

The third thing I dragged out of the very deep bin where I keep all my kits was another one that Dawna made and I had to have -- I think we're developing a theme here!

I loved the cover quilt of this Leisure Arts publication, Quilted Hearts & Flowers by Cotton Pickin' Designs, Debbie Foley & Valerie Boman. Dawna made hers in colors similar to the cover quilt; I wanted a little less green and maybe some yellow, since there was this fabulous yellow border print in the shop. I had Dawna make the kit up for me in early 2006.


So here are my fabrics; I got all the parts rotary cut...

...and then made a block to see if the fabrics were playing well together.

The blocks that will have the heart appliques on them have a floral print in the center that is surrounded by triangles to make a square-in-a-square design. My original fabrics would have placed the yellow busy floral in those triangles -- I definitely didn't like that, so I went to the quilt shop, still didn't find anything I wanted to use there, so went home, dove into the stash and came up with the deep rose in the upper left hand corner. Much better!

My trip to the quilt store reminded me of something that I really should be keeping in mind when I shop: Colors, like fashion trends, go "in" and "out" -- that's why I had a problem trying to find a particular color to go with purchases made in years past. If you are very lucky, it will come around again in a reasonable amount of time, but you just can't count on it.

That's why we have to shop all the time -- so that we have an extensive palette of colors we need!