En Provence Announced

Bonnie Hunter announced her 2016 mystery quilt*, En Provence, today. I haven’t ever done one of her mystery quilts, but I always collect the instructions, thinking that I will do one some day, after the fact. I am pleased to watch Pam and Daisy and Valerie and others do the steps. They have made some gorgeous quilts.

I have a great deal of respect for Bonnie for creating a new mystery quilt every year. I just haven’t made the plunge. I did Scrapitude, which I love. That was a mystery quilt and I am not sure I could top it.

Normally, I am quite confident choosing colors for a quilt. One problem I have with mystery quilts is choosing the colors. Scrapitude was great because it was a scrap quilt and the background was clearly defined. In this one, I don’t know if the neutrals will be the background. I don’t know where the green and yellow will end up, though Bonnie says the two colors should have good contrast with each other. I appreciate her mentioning such tips and tricks. However, I don’t want to spend time on a quilt only to have it end up as a mushy mess at the end.

My color preferences are much brighter than hers. I always wonder if they would work. I did some Palette Builder work on her inspiration photos and was glad to see that she had made good choices.

So, I don’t know if I will make the mystery quilt. I will collect the directions and I did order the new and fancy ruler (I love rulers!), so I am ready to go. Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

*As you may know, the link above will not work after ~June 2017. You will need to work along with her to get all the pieces.

ColorPlay: Soup Tureen

My recent trip to Austria was a complete feast for the eyes. Everywhere I looked I wanted to capture the images – the layering, the lines and especially the color.

Silberkammer: pantry
Silberkammer: pantry

It is hard to choose a favorite museum, but right now I am in love with the Silberkammer in Vienna. It is the museum of the Kitchens and Dining of the Hapsburgs. There are dishes, serveware and set tables everywhere. Above shows one of the rooms of the pantries that remain. There were several, but some are now used for other purposes. Ever since I saw the butler’s pantry at my friend Kathy’s childhood home in Upstate New York, I have wanted a pantry. Of course, the one shown above would take up half of the main floor of my house (kitchen, dining room and part of the living). To have somewhere to keep china, crystal and silver would be fantastic.

Silberkammer: Soup tureen
Silberkammer: Soup tureen

One of the sets of china includes a soup tureen decorated with a lovely jade color. I am using it as our color play today.

The color scheme the Palette Builder tool originated was all neutrals. That lovely green color was not included. I didn’t even save that palette. I moved all the circles around to come up with something better

Soup Tureen Palette
Soup Tureen Palette

It is interesting that the green is considered Kona Bluegrass. I’ll have to go and look up what color Kona Jade is, if there is such a color.

Again the tool had problems with the pinks/fuschias. I moved the little bubble around quite a bit and the Kona Crimson was the only red I could get. I think the angle of the photo had something to do with the results as well.

I would definitely change out some of the colors if I made a quilt with this color palette.

Let me know your thoughts or if you make something from this color palette.