Monday, March 13, 2017

Revving Up the Red for RSC2017

My grandson's favourite colour is red, or it always used to be until this past year when he has changed it a couple of times! Funny how that goes: both my girls were the same, Brianne loved pink up until around age 12 when she changed her mind; Dayna always loved purple, until around the same age when she, too, decided upon other favourite colours.  I, too, changed my favourite, blue, over the years. However, they both, like myself, came back to their first love, so I suspect Brady will too.  I believe the vibrations of a favourite colour do resonate deeply with a person, on a level we don't even comprehend.
The first 50 blocks, 1-25 on the left grouping, 26-50 on the right, in order
I don't consider red among my favourites.  Pink, also burgundy, yes, but I haven't ever felt an affinity for red.  Until lately.  This year I am taking part in the 150 Canadian Women quilt along, a project designed by Kat Tucker of Next Step Quilt Designs.  I have fallen in LOVE with all the shades and tones and hues of this rich colour.  These 6" blocks have been made almost entirely from my scraps.  I did buy a few fat quarters of white. I am so happy that I am keeping up with the 3 blocks per week.
Here are the two latest sets:
#46 Kathleen Parlow, "acclaimed as the world's greatest woman violinist", at age 15 she played with the London Symphony Orchestra; #47 Katherine Ryan, aka Klondike Kate, well-known to Edmontonians from our Klondike Days Festival, I knew of her Gold Rush fame, but not that she was the first female gold inspector, the first woman NWMP (Canada's famous Mounted Police), and a dear friend of the poet Robert Service; #48 Charlotte Small Thompson, wife of the famous David Thompson, she travelled more miles, over 3.5 times the amount, in fact, than Lewis and Clark.
That was taken in sunlight; the reds really sing! Sometimes I do a special fabric, both as a commemoration of what the woman accomplished, or as a pnemonic device to help me remember the person's name or accomplishment.  Here I chose the music fabric (I was pretty sure Kat would pick at least one from amongst Canada's many many fine female musicians) for Katherine, gold in all three fabrics for Klondike Kate, and the black background with small red flower print to remind me of  Charlotte Small Thompson and her husband, David, sitting outside watching the stars in their last days together.  That image gives me such warmth in my heart.
#49 Dr. Sylvia Fedoruk, one of four team members who developed the Cobalt-60 unit and one of the world's first nuclear medicine scanning machines, and she also developed a device that could tell whether a thyroid was cancerous; #50 Rachel Zimmerman Brachman, at age 12, yes 12!, she invented the Blissymbol Printer that allows physically disabled people to communicate (I immediately thought of the book Karen, she currently works for NASA, tailoring their innovations for people with disabilities; #51 Maud Lewis, painter, a folk artist, who I'd never heard of (look her up!) whose whimsical paintings and tiny whimsically painted house where she lived have captured my heart.

Again, I used some à propos fabrics here and there.  For Rachel, I wanted a text print, and when I saw the bicycle print in my 2.5" squares tray, I thought I'd include it because she was hit by a car while riding her bike which forced her to drop out of obtaining her Masters in Astronomy.  For Maud, the painting of hers that I just adore is of three black cats, and so I used two cat prints, a red and an ivory. The whimsy of the daisies and the tiny floral remind me of her fascinating house.

On to red in RSC2017.  This is project #3, turning out to be a bit more complicated than just adding the colour of the month to a few opposing sides of the centre strip, ha!  It meant I had to make another purple corner so I can get at least a square of each colour where the corners meet.
I also have started, again mostly as a leader/ender, making my red strip of migrating geese.  You can see that it is a fair bit bigger in scraps size than both the CA Women and the strippy project.
I love the combo of very old scraps, such as David Textiles and VIP by Cranston, with brand new, such as Paintbrush Studio and Zen Chic.

Red in my yard...
MacGyver transplanted 'my' bougainvillea, and threatened to yank it after it lost all its leaves and looked dead for a few weeks.  I wouldn't let him, thinking, no, knowing it was rejuvenating from the roots up.  He also did see that the stems were green.  Just look at the marvel it is becoming!  The bougainvillea everywhere are stunning in their glory, maybe because it has been unusually dry here in Florida this winter?

Red in some Canada fabric I ordered from Sew Sisters that my friend brought down for me!
Both Moda and Northcott lines are here.  The turquoise, I think, is going to be the 1.5" sashing pieces for my CA Women quilt...though now I've got it, it is telling me it needs to be a star in its own quilt.  We shall see...

For those who are going to , or those who are thinking about, joining my first QAL, Freefall, I'll be back tomorrow with fabric requirements and tips, and wow, more prizes!

PS I finally found the tiny clothespegs for my Quilter's Laundry Day mini-mini quilt on the line! Don't even ask...right under my nose...in yup IN the sewing room closet.

Speaking of right under your nose...
Craftsy Classes for $20Yup.  Every.  Single.  Class.  This is a fantastic deal, and it is usually when I buy mine. 😉 (affiliate link in the rainbow words there.)  But hurry; it ends tonight at midnight!


Linking up with
soscrappy
Cooking Up Quilts
Patchwork Times

13 comments:

  1. You are SOOO up to date with the 150 blocks. The ladies have had such interesting and fulfilling lives, each one achieving so much, and no doubt with real hardships along the way. I hobbled down to the room where I keep fabric, crutches a real but necessary nuisance now, and it took AGES to find some fabrics to make the Quilters Laundry Day hanging . I thought I had ample scraps in batiks, but think I will do the sky in graduated blues, ending up with a dark night sky, at the very top, and have the Southern Cross in deep gold stitching there..Now it is in actual words, I need to get started!!!

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  2. I love red and white quilts and yours is going to be so beautiful with all of those different designs.

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  3. Your blocks for the 150 Canadian woman quilt along look amazing! I wanted to participate in this one, but I'm terrible at following quilt alongs. I get too distracted. I forget to print the pattern. Especially the ones that require a weekly update. Monthly is not so bad. But yours looks amazing.

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  4. lots of lovely red blocks ..... beautiful work
    Hugz

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  5. Beautiful bits of RED for the RSC and beyond!!

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  6. I'm not a "red" person either - it's pink and burgundy for me too.
    And strangely enough, although I love to wear blue in many shades, I don't like it in quilts or furnishings. Just feels too cold to me.
    I do have a blue top all ready and waiting, I can't really bring myself to get it quilted yet.

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  7. Red and white combinations remind me of candy canes, Christmas and Valentine's Day themes, not to mention Target :-D
    But red and yellow is something completely different. Red and yellow are the colors of auspiciousness, of the goddesses' sarees, of religious ceremonies in Hinduism. Also of spices and spicy curries :-)
    Back to your blocks - that is a lot of work, a lot of blocks and I am sure there will be a lot more before you finish. And it is also a lot of eye candy. You have been very busy.
    Hugs,
    Preeti.

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  8. I love how you use fabric to suit the women in the blocks. I'm still on the fence regarding the sashing.

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  9. I love your "all about red" post. I'm quite behind on my 150cw blocks, but as today is a snow day, I proclaim it a "sew day"....lol....so maybe I'll get a few blocks done!

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  10. All beautiful. That bougainvillea is stunning!!

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  11. Wow, I think you are very productive. I just love everything about your little Laundry Day quilt, glad you found those clothes pins.

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  12. Very pretty blocks. You've done a great job of keeping up. Love your new stash acquisitions, those teals are beautiful.

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  13. What a wonderful collection of red scraps turned into blocks. They are looking great!

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