Friday, January 10, 2020

A Purple Retrospective / Beauties Pageant 64

It’s funny how this sewing hobby of mine has affected my relationship with color. After assembling fabric pulls for countless projects, I am much more comfortable using color and creating unique palettes. Sewing and quilting, for example, are responsible for my current love affair with orange and my affinity for red as a source of pop and interest. One color that has little place in my life despite my hobby is purple. I’m more of a warm-color girl, and although I find myself using greens and blues to some degree, purple rarely takes a big role in my projects.

So when Sarah Goer unveiled her new Sew Me Something linky and announced that the theme for January was purple, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to play. But a look through the From Bolt to Beauty archives proved me wrong. I have sewn with purple—orchid and eggplant and lavender. What follows is a look at some of those projects.

The Must-Have Fabric

When I saw this beautiful eggplant fabric, from Amy Butler’s Love collection, I bought many yards of it. It was an unusual fabric-buying strategy for me, but it resulted in two fabulous bags, one for me and one for my sister. (See the original posts here and here.)



The Workshop Quilt

Years ago, when I coordinated events for my guild, we brought Amy Garro to New England for a workshop and trunk show. I am not sure what drove me to purple for this project, but I love the results. Amy made her original quilt in blues and called it Icy Waters. My rendering of the same design in purple is called Grape Fizz. (See the original post here.)


The Scrap Buster

All it took was a project or two, and suddenly I had a pile of purple scraps. I paired stash with solid scraps from Grape Fizz and a cute fox print from Judy, of Sew Some Sunshine, to sew this Penny Patch quilt. I think it’s my favorite purple make to date! (See the original post here. Find the Penny Patch quilt-along at Stitched in Color here.)


Do you sew with purple? Let us know in the comments, and add your projects to Sarah’s Sew Me Something Purple link-up.


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11 comments:

  1. I'm not a big fan of purple, but you have made it look gorgeous! Love that second bag, with it's perfect placement of the flowers.

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  2. Your purple creations are all wonderful, Michelle! I don't think there's any colour I avoid, but I probably use yellow and brown the least.

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  3. Purple and red are two colors that I don't tend to use much, so I put concerted effort last year to use them. They are just colors I don't gravitate to, although I like them just fine. Your purple projects are all lovely!

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  4. Love the purples! I have made some quilts with purple... not my favorite, but it was my Dad's favorite color.
    MelvaLovesScraps(at)NolanQualityCustoms(dot)com

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  5. Hi Michelle! I am not a purple person, although I do have some of it in my wardrobe and even more in stash. I just adore Grape Fizz! And your bags in eggplant are pretty darn nifty. I'll have to go peek at Sarah's linkup and see all the purple projects. ~smile~ Roseanne

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  6. Like you, I have very little purple in my stash. In fact, when I was making a scrappy quilt from Amanda Jean Nyberg's book, "No Scrap Left Behind," and I was creating a rainbow layout, Amanda Jean took pity on me and my lack of purples to mail me some scraps! My quilt turned out beautifully, thanks to her. Also like you, I have a big fondness for orange (I have a 22'-long wall in my living room that's Sherwin-William's "Tangerine"), and also love aqua. I am sure those preferences have had great bearing from living in Florida, where bright colors are more acceptable and expected. I really like your Grape Fizz quilt. Looks like that workshop with Amy was really worthwhile, and that's the best thing to happen when you're in a workshop... to be pushed outside your "normal."

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  7. I love your projects! I actually had FEWER purple projects to link up than I thought, but will be posting a new quilt to share in the linkup. (and maybe a few extras as well!

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  8. Those bags are great. I enjoy purple, but don't use it very often.

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  9. Hi Michelle. Great bags and really lovely quilt. Those colours go so well together! and thanks for introducing us to the Show Me Something link up!

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  10. Love seeing your purple creations! Thanks for the reminder on the Show Me Something post.

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  11. While I love purple, I find I either make PURPLE projects or projects with no purple. For me purple has a hard time playing nice with other colors (except in a rainbow). Maybe I need to work on using purple mixed with other colors. Your scrap buster is a great example of it working well with others. Thank you for linking up to Show Me Something Purple!

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