Patchwork & Pillowcases

Taken with my cellphone camera....early this morning before leaving for work. sigh.

I didn't want to leave it!

I love this blog by Alicia Paulson and today my love grew even greater when she offered up a free embroidery pattern for pillowcases at Sew Mama Sew! Queen Anne's Lace....oh how lovely, eh? I want to stitch some of these for our bed....

....to go with the new patchwork coverlet I am working on!

A few weeks ago, I decided to stop HOARDING my favorite fabrics and just CUT INTO THEM. I picked out my favorites and every few nights I cut 2 to 4 8" squares of each, and just started stacking them in one of my "work in progress trays" (um...yeah, I do have a dozen or so of them going at any given time. Any other questions?) Moving along....

So...last night, I started piecing them together in rows of 8. OH...but first I divied up my piles into "greens/blues," "pinks/reds," and "oranges" (cause those were the main colors in my "favs" it seems).

I pieced the first row, then eyeballed the selections for the next row, being sure that the same fabrics did not touch. And sure enough....as I moved down the rows, I realized how SIMILAR my fabrics were. Not enough DARKS and not enough small scale prints. I guess I tend to just "like what I like" and pick up the same fabrics over and over again. I just marvel at the "queens of quilting" who can design a whole colorway of fabrics that JUST GO TOGETHER and those who can whip up a scrappy quilt with "oh, just some stuff from my stash" and have it look just so right.

Interesting thing? The fabrics I LOVE on the bolt are NOT my favs in the actual quilt top....and those I almost passed over, I ended up cutting more squares of to sprinkle among the rows. I think I finally get the "add sparkle" terminology I keep seeing when reading about fabric selections in quilting patterns.

And so to bed!