I'll Take That in RGB

I have this thing for red, green, and blue. They’re my default color palette. I prefer a red close to cranberry, a green with a big dose of gray, and a pale blue that lately has been bordering on aqua.

Maybe this phenomenon isn’t unusual. Perhaps you have a set of colors you consistently prefer over others. Here’s where the weirdness starts: My mom also likes red, green, and blue. Her house is decorated in a dusty pink, greens on the continuum of sage to sea foam, and Williamsburg blue.

And now it gets weirder. My 6-year-old likes the same three colors. When he was just 18 months old and faced with a pile of colored blocks, he would separate the red, green, and blue blocks from the others. In fact, we found collections of all sorts of red, green, and blue objects squirreled away around our house. He so consistently preferred those colors that I made the cupcakes for his second birthday with layers of red, green, and blue batter.

My stash reflects my fondness for this color palette. I’ve had one special fat quarter stashed away for many years, waiting for the right project. It’s an old print from Maison de Noel by 3 Sisters, and it appeals to my more traditional side. It’s a sweet paisley, but I know I likely wouldn’t have bought it in a different colorway.

I finally cut into this fat quarter for my latest finish, an orange peel pillow ...

If I had to summarize this project in a single word, it would be fiddly. With this Curves Class assignment moreso than the others I’ve finished (including this journal, this mini, and these potholders), I unpicked seams and at times scrapped an entire quadrant to start afresh with newly cut fabric.

Despite the failed attempts, I’m happy with the results, and it’s satisfying to step by and bask in the glow of a few nicely pieced curves. I like squares, rectangles, and triangles well enough, but the softness of these curves makes me want to sew more of them.

I paired 3 Sister’s Maison de Noel with Kona Snow and this off-red from French General.

I didn’t think quilting—or maybe my quilting?!—would have added to this piece; I liked the clean look of the curves without quilting lines. To add substance without adding batting, I chose to interface it with Pellon Thermolam, which seemed to work well. 

Curves classmates: I have one thought if you plan to sew this project. Do you remember Rachel’s original? (My apologies to other readers! I can’t find a public pic of Rachel’s pillow!) She cut all four main template pieces from a single square of fabric with a large-scale design. The result is amazing, but I chose a more forgiving nondirectional fabric. I actually made six quadrants and scrapped two wonky ones, but since I used a nondirectional, it didn’t matter which of the six I used in my final pillow.

I have two more projects for this Curves Class: my rainbow color wheel, which needs to be quilted and bound, and my Oodalolly (see Rachel’s original here), which is currently a heap of fabric. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more on these projects.

Before I sign off, I wanted to send a shout-out to my fellow Curves classmate and all-around favorite quilty person. Kim Soper, the talented lady behind Leland Ave Studios, was not at QuiltCon last week, but her Long Island Modern Sampler was—and it won first place in the modern traditional category. To read more about this quilt and to learn where you can find the patterns for the individual blocks in it, visit Kim’s blog post on the subject.

Long Island Modern Sampler, courtesy of Leland Ave Studios

Linking up to Sew Cute Tuesday, Let’s Bee Social, Needle and Thread Thursday, and TGIFF ...