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Seminole quilts

10/11/2013

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These quilts were made using the book Simply Seminole by Dorothy Hanisko. This book is a great resource for color theory, cutting techniques and Seminole piecing. This style of piecing was started by the Seminole Tribe, who were originally from Florida. 

    Seminole piecing is a technique that involves cutting the fabric into strip sets, cutting them apart and sewing them together again to make a new pieced strip an interesting pattern. Traditionally, these decorative strips of fabric were used in garments. Therefore the finished strips would be of a small scale. In Simply Seminole, the author enlarges the patterns to make them suitable to quilting.

    Making a Seminole quilt is a great opportunity to experiment with color and value. I like to start with a theme fabric and gather other fabrics to support it. This is a great project for seeing what values or hues are missing in your fabric stash. I've found that I don't have enough light values. To remedy this, whenever I go to a fabric shopping, I look for a pastel fabric to bring home with me.
 
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Value Play with Kozmic results

10/5/2013

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    The quilt I want to show you today, named Kozmic Blues, was the result of utilizing Electric Quilt software for color and value study. I started with a simple kaleidoscope pattern and then tried different value placements to create a focal design. 

    The design is visible to you because of the values of the fabrics that were chosen. When I finally had a design that I liked I went to my stash with a copy of the design and a value finder. A
value finder can be a very handy tool to have, especially if, like me, you are not a natural when it comes to understanding color and value. I used the value finder to help me find the fabrics in my stash that would fit the design. If I didn't have the color/value that I needed in my stash I went shopping for it later. 

        Try to keep an open mind when it comes to selecting fabrics. Always start with more choices than you will use. Once you place the fabrics together on a table, they will tell you who they want to "play with" and who they don't. Some of the fabrics that I thought would work at first didn't play well with their subsequent partners and had to be replaced with more compatible choices.

    I used my EQ design program to audition some of the fabrics before cutting them up and placing them on my design wall. I scanned the fabrics into my computer as JPEG files. Then I loaded them into my EQ program to use as fabrics in the computer program.

    When I had finally selected the fabrics that I thought would work for the
design I cut out the block pieces from all my choices and placed them on my design
wall to make sure they worked. I stared at these from near and far and changed what didn't work until the fabrics combined to give life to my design. In the end I was very pleased with my choices.
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This is the finished quilt. I named it Kozmic Blues in honor of the song by Janis Joplin.
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I dyed the fabric for the back of the quilt using MX reactive fabric dyes.
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Woven Stripe pattern from quilting treasures

10/1/2013

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Hi Folks,
Here is another free pattern from Quilting Treasures fabrics for you. The collection is called Quilting Stripe by Kensington Studio. The stripe is 1" wide and the collection comes in four color ways. This is a great way to make a stunning quilt in little time. Click on the image below to find the free pattern.
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    Janice  Averill
    West Haven, Connecticut, United states

    Welcome to my Blog! This is where I'll share my thoughts about quilting with you. I'll post pictures and talk about designing quilts and construction techniques. I'll also post things that inspire me. Please leave a comment and let me know that you came by for a visit..

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