OMG, Butterflies en Provence!

It's time for the Kaleidoscope of Butterflies link up this month. Last month I was on the lookout for some butterflies, and I captured this one "in the wild."

You can see by the lint that this fabric spent a long time in my scrap bin! This stack of triangles is for foundation piecing in Wild & Goosey. The scrap bin is now almost empty! But the stack of triangles keeps growing as I add the leftovers from other projects.

Also this week, Bonnie Hunter revealed the final layout for her 2016 mystery quilt, En Provence. You can see it here, for the next few weeks. I love it! I especially like the circular effect with the purple in the big blocks. And I have to say, I was genuinely mystified. I thought I knew where it was going, and I was wrong!

But anyway, let me remind you of my flamingo-inspired colourway:

Bonnie's quilt has sixteen of those circle blocks, so for my simplified version I thought nine would work well. I am using pink where Bonnie used yellow, and I noticed that her yellow fabrics are quite light. I have that light pink flamingo blender, and I thought that would be perfect!

Argh, no, it is horrible! The light aqua adds nothing, and there are just too many flamingos. Does it look better with the green squares added? It does not. So many pretty fabrics, so terrible all together. Right from the start I had a feeling that it would be risky to change the values in the quilt. But, I ignored the doubts and forged ahead! I should know by now to listen to those niggling doubts.

So now I have quite a few pink flamingos to add to the stack of triangles for Wild & Goosey! What a useful project.

Looking closely at Bonnie's finished quilt, some of her greens (where I used aqua) are almost black. And they are extremely scrappy with a wide range of values, which gives a lot of interest. I needed something very grounding too. I considered dark pinks or reds, but then I thought, why not black? I have some bold black prints in my stash that could give that same range of interest that Bonnie has:

And look, there's that same butterfly fabric again! I haven't cut them yet, but I'm keen to see how they will work.

I also like that the larger pieces in this project will show off some of my larger scale, modern fabrics. Here are pinks I settled on:

They looked good in the sunlight there, didn't they?

By Monday I hope to have at least a block or two to share, and by the last link up in February I am determined to have the flimsy done. So that is my One Monthly Goal for January as well -- En Provence flimsy by the end of the month. Only nine blocks! Plus, pieced sashing and pieced border...

Right now I am still catching up on the clues I skipped. Here are my green hsts from clue #5:

And today I was cutting these fabrics for more Tri-Recs units from clue #4:

After considerable thought, I've also decided to go back and piece some of the all-white four patch units from clue #1. Those are next!

Rose Boll

Happy New Year!

So, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I planned to start a second, new (for me), Bonnie Hunter design, in addition to the others that are already on the go. This is it!

Rose Boll

North Americans will know the pun, which I just could not resist. Every New Year's Day our family used to watch the Rose Bowl parade from Pasadena, California. My grandfather was a wholesale flower supplier, so flowers are in our blood. This fabric is from the Savannah Garden collection by Henry Glass.

Last January, while we were all working on Bonnie's last mystery, Allietare, I was also looking at her previous mysteries. I became obsessed with this one, Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll:

The pattern is now in Bonnie's book, String Fling (2012). The main colours in Bonnie's quilt are red, pink and green. I tried many variations over the past year, and finally settled on just a two-colour scheme, red and white. When I realized that I could use all my rose-themed florals, and call it "Rose Boll," the decision was made!

Of course, now I've also started two more red and white quilts, 150 Canadian Women and Wild & Goosey, so I'm going to be up to my neck in red and white this year.

Wild & Goosey

(I know, Wild & Goosey doesn't currently look like a red and white quilt, but the sashing will be red and white flying geese. I've even considered the name "Canadian Goosey." We'll see...)

Anyway, this week I rough cut all my red rose fabrics:

I miscalculated and cut everything about a 1/2" scant! But, it's ok. I can still use it, but now the whole thing will need an extra bit of care when I make the final cuts.

There are some scant seams in the first block to make up for my cutting error. But, I think it worked!

The second block was a little easier:

Actually, with these two blocks you can see the range between the fairly solid red and the boldest floral in the mix. Although I have lighter reds in my stash, these dark reds seemed very determined to be in the quilt. Despite all the florals, I think it's going to be very graphic.

I'll tell you right now, I also have what I think is a good plan for Bonnie's quilt Orca Bay, which is also in String Fling. But I think I can let myself finish a couple things before I start that! And anyway, my next new quilt, for sure, will be Prairie Star, which has been waiting and waiting and waiting...