Fine art to funky traditional: life and quilting
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Here’s how I selected the color palette and fabrics for the Miranda bag. I find many quilters who are either intimidated by the color wheel or who understand the theory behind it but not how to apply it to their quilts. A real-life example should help.
I knew I wanted to use the yellow French provencal fabric, and I also knew I needed some contrast between the bag cover, bottom, and lining. But I didn’t want the contrast to be so overwhelming that it was the focus. The focus of the color scheme needed to be the French fabric, and I wanted nothing to detract from it.
So I chose yellow, blue, and red, a Triad color harmony which includes three colors evenly spaced around the color wheel. It’s a medium contrast palette, so I knew it would fit perfectly for Miranda.
While yellow, red, and blue are the hues, I needed to test fabrics for their values and intensities as well. The French fabric was a dull hue, so I wanted the other two fabrics to be dull as well so as not to overwhelm the cover.
Here are the candidates:
Red’s intensity is too bright. Blue’s value is right but the flowers are distracting.
Red’s value is good, but the intensity of an all red fabric may be too overwhelming. I need to try fabrics that have red in them but aren’t solid red. Blue fabric is perfect: value is medium, intensity is dull, and the style is in keeping with the provencal feel of the yellow fabric.
Same red fabric, but the blue fabric’s value is entirely too light. Next!
This is it! The red fabric is a print with the same style as the yellow and blue, the value is medium, and the intensity is dull. This is the final palette I chose and it turned out beautifully. I’m pleased with how the bag looks and how functional it is.
Remember this example next time you are ready to select a color palette for your next quilt. I knew my focus (the cover fabric), selected my color harmony (triad) to fit the purpose, and they worked together to create a successful color scheme.
I’ve been searching for the perfect handbag. One that’s large enough to hold my small sketchbook and colored pencil case, in addition to the normal planner, checkbook, keys, lipstick and other essentials organized girls carry. Either the handbags were too small or were cavernous dark holes that everything got lost in. Until I found Miranda.
I had asked Jean to order this pattern and it somehow got lost in transit, but arrived just in time for the long weekend (which was even longer due to snow in Georgia!). I told Jean I’d make a sample for her shop as well as one for myself.
I made the sample bag first, and was duly impressed with Joan Hawley’s instructions. As a technical writer, I was also struck by the photos Joan used to illustrate each step. Photos are great, as you see exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, as opposed to illustrations, where you have room for misinterpretation.
Here’s the sample I made for Jean:
After making it once, I made a few changes to my bag when I made it. I quilted the flap, shortened the handles to make it look more like a handbag and less like a tote bag, and used the same fabric for the flap and handles as I did the cover. I wanted the focus to be the handbag, not contrasting accessory parts to the bag.
I love it! I used French provencal fabric my friend Danielle brought back for me after her trip to Europe, and mixed that with some others I had in my stash for quite the sophisticated look.
In my next post I’ll talk about how I chose the colors for my bag using the color wheel.
The folks at Slideshare selected my Making a Quilter’s Color Wheel tutorial as a featured slidecast. Thanks Slideshare! Sweet.
I’m so excited! I’ve created a tutorial on Making a Quilter’s Color Wheel, and you can click on the slidecast here to view it. This took me a couple days to do: an afternoon to shoot the photos and another day to make the slideshow, record the audio, upload and troubleshoot.
Leave me a comment to let me know if you found this useful. If so, I’ll make additional tutorials.
My winter class offerings are now on my website, and I’m teaching including a new class called Lose the Paper, Not Your Mind: Half-Square Triangles. I used to pull my hair out making HSTs, because they were never accurate. So, like most people, I made them oversized and cut them down after pressing. What a total waste of time.
I discovered a better method and simplified it, making it even easier. No paper foundations, no cutting twice. Making a quilt with these HSTs is a dream, because they don’t get distorted after you press them. Your quilt comes together like butter. I promise.
I’ll have more classes coming soon at the Sharptop Arts Association as well. Check out the new schedule here. Can’t wait to meet you in one of my classes!
We’ve decided to stay put in this house rather than move to the new one, so I wanted to rearrange the office area of my studio. I have a lovely writing table my husband made I use as a desk, but little space for papers or office supplies.
So, in the vein of making something from nothing, we went to Home Depot and Wal-Mart and bought some inexpensive shelving and office supplies, and here’s the result:
You can see what it looked like before here. Very little office space, just a table and a white board.
My favorite part of this new alcove is the collaged backgrounds I have on the wall. These were the result of an exercise I did in The Artist’s Way, and I remember thinking how juvenile and ridiculous cutting and pasting magazine photos was and how was this going to make me a better artist, yada, yada, yada. Well, I came to treasure these collages so much they lived in my bedroom closet when I didn’t have a studio. and they were prominently displayed on the walls when I finally got one.
Making something beautiful from nothing. An office, some art, a beautiful life.
Emily is now sleeping soundly under her UGA quilt. I called it the Dawg House, reflecting the contemporary Log Cabin design. Here’s the label I made for the back, and each Peagler student who uses it will sign it with their name, degree, and year graduated.
I’m so glad I machined quilted this myself. Yes, it would have been easier to send it to be long-armed, but it meant so much more to me to do it myself. Even when I was cursing the quilt under my breath.
One of my Christmas gifts to myself is the memoir Eat. Pray. Love. by Elizabeth Gilbert. I’m finding it more entertaining than spiritually uplifting, but one of Elizabeth’s experiences resonated with me and I haven’t been able to forget it. During her stay in Italy, she experiences the Italian notion of l’arte d’arrangiarsi - the art of making something out of nothing. She says,
“The art of turning a few simple ingredients into a feast or a few gathered friends into a festival. Anyone with a talent for happiness can do this, not only the rich.”
Then Robert Glenn’s weekly newsletter appeared in my email inbox this morning talking of making and selling art in tough economic times. I think it’s even more important to make art when times are tough, as it uplifts both the artist and the public. Some of Norman Rockwell’s most beloved art came was inspired by a speech by Franklin Roosevelt during hard times in World War II. People remember the paintings much more than they remember the speech.
I’m inspired to create beautiful works of art during tough economic times, making something from nothing. From humble beginnings of old ripped jeans, sketch paper, and fabric scraps, I made prayer journals:
A tiny expression of beauty, not necessarily for materials that went into the journals, but for what will grace their pages.
Welcome to award-winning author and quilt artist Maria Peagler's online studio and classroom. Relax, have some fun, and take a look around. You'll find quilts, free lessons and ebooks. Keep checking back, I've always got something new. Better yet, subscribe to my blog!
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