Penny Sampler - January 2017

As you can probably already tell from the title, that I signed up for the Penny Sampler class over with Rachel at Stitched in Color. It's a project she made a couple of years ago, and I thought it was really cute then, but wasn't the right time for me to sign up for yet another thing. But when Rachel mentioned late last year that she was planning n re-running the class, I jumped at it. Well, not so much jumped as started strongly encouraging my husband to sign me up as a Christmas present... He didn't bite so I had to sign myself up, but no complaints! ha ha.

Penny Sampler


Rachel is offering the class as a 6 month or 12 month course, and because I know that I am slow I went with 12 months. We're only just starting now, so if this seems like something you'd be into, I'm sure Rachel is accepting late admissions ;-)

The first task of the course is colour.  Both my happy place and my nemesis.

I wanted something that felt very Scandinavian (becasue the piecing really does have the effect for me, but maybe I'm reading into it too much) so did some pinterest-ing on all things Swedish, Norse and Finish. Once I had some pictures that fit the vibe I was after I went to the amazing palette builder and started to throw those images through it (P.S. If you're ever looking for  a way to while away an afternoon, this is the shiz. I spent about 2 hours just putting in every photo I could lay my hands on and then playing with the little buttons to see what colours I could pull. Fun!). I ended up with a lot of similarities in the Kona colours picked from the images..






Ok, you may now have OD'd on my colour palettes, but this was super helpful for me in working out what I needed.

In ordering my fabrics I think I veered more towards the greys and away from the browns/creams. I think the browns look perfect in the inspo photos, because the're coming from woods and pottery, but I'm not sure that I can translate that through fabrics. We'll see. I may need to order more fabric.  Hopefully not though, as I just dropped a bomb at Clairs Fabrics (Aussie based, with an excellent range of Kona and reasonable shipping to Brissy, just fyi) so am now awaiting the delivery of a giant bundle of fabric.

One thing I have done (or am planning to do) is changing out a couple of blocks. The original design includes "Dala horses" which are just not me. I've swapped them (in theory at this point) with some dogwood/orange peel blocks. Hopefully they should still keep that vibe of busy and detailed without the slightly character element of the horses.


I'm also planning on removing a little mitten and swapping it with an extra tea cup.  I live in Australia, we never have snow so mittens don't feel like me either, and I'm a tea addict, so it feels right.  Hopefully I don't ruin it with these changes, but they make sense in my head, and I can always change my mind again later, if it seems silly while I'm putting it together.

The other thing I'm wanting to be mindful of is *not too much pink*.  I don't want this to feel like a baby quilt. I want the pinks and blues to feel like really elegant, sophisticated additions. Hopefully lots of white and grey will help.

I guess we'll see!!

As I said this is supposed to be a 12 month project, so Long way to go before we're done, and lots of time for me to change my mind but fingers crossed it works, and that I can keep chugging away at this.

E xx

Linking up to Main Crush Monday, Let's Bee Social and Midweek Makers.

Comments

  1. I love your changes to the pattern! It's a great way to make it your own and I don't think it "ruins" anything at all. :) (And yay, palette builder love, thank you!! <3 )

    ReplyDelete
  2. Swapping out those blocks sounds good to me. I would do the same as I am in South Australia, no snow here either. Look forward to seeing your fabrics when they arrive and your progress.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This looks like a very exciting project. I like the changes you made and the colours you've chosen. looking forward to seeing how this progresses!

    ReplyDelete
  4. It sounds like it's going to be beautiful. I think it's great that you are swapping some things out to make the quilt more your own.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This looks like it will be a beautiful quilt, a little over whelming for me, but someday.

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is going to be awesome! I love that you are swapping little things out to make it more you!

    ReplyDelete
  7. glad to know about "palette builder" -- thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Lovely! Can't wait to see how your quilt develops.

    ReplyDelete
  9. That will be lovely when finished! Thanks for sharing on Midweek Makers, and please be sure to share your updates!

    ReplyDelete
  10. It's a fun pattern and your palette sounds perfect. Enjoy the process!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Sounds like the ticket. I love playing with the pallete builder tool too. It is southing and inspiring and a time waster par excellence =) I am looking forward to seeing you 'Penny Sampler' taking off

    ReplyDelete
  12. This sounds like a great project and I love your fabric colour choices. I think you should get just the look your trying for. (yes I am trawling through your posts :-))

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'm still working out how to make email reply's work, but I promise I read every one and will reply by email or on the blog.
E xx