Noooooooo!!!!!!!!!

After my monthly trip down to the San Pedro scout shop I decided to reward myself with a trip to my favorite fabric store. It was on the way home. Really. Kind of.

I was greeted with this:

 

In spite of having exactly 2 hours to shop, wait in line, get home to get organized, and get the boys, I managed to buy this:

A lot of brown and orange. Two colors I rarely use. I love love love that bird fabric! I see a bag of some sort. The pink/red/black is intended for the outside of the Everything Bag from Weekend Sewing. I want to do some sort of wonky block with the orange/brown on the upper right. (I love those fruit trees! Love them.) The bottom selection--I'm not sure yet.

Now I need to get back there. I need to go with a plan. And to think I really just wanted to see Innocent Crush to wrap my brain around it before buying any. Needless to say, they don't have it.

Peach and...navy?

That's the color peach, not peaches the fruit. *sigh*. I decided get one of these since they were on sale. I admit it--I really like the sample they show on the right. Needless to say, I didn't get that. My "coordinating pack" goes from off-white peach through medium blue to navy and black. With many many girly florals. And some anchors.

The lighter/brighter colors

The darker colors

I thought this was a total bust til I separated the colors as in the pics above. I realized I have some leftovers from a baby quilt. And maybe some blues from oh-so-long-ago when I worked at New York Fabrics. In high school. I am pretty sure New York Fabrics no longer exists. (My location has been a Joann's for eons.) So, leaving the new strips laid out, I stuck some of my stash down on the sides just to see.

Stash coral to red

Stash off white to coral

Stash navys (navies?)

Stash light to medium blues

This looks like I can do something here! A bento box? A simple vertical strip quilt to take advantage of my pre-cut strips (I will be saving those many many selvages too).

Sketches. Yes, I cut some out to twist around.

I don't actually like anything I've thought of yet. Well, the bento box quilt idea I do like. But we'll see. I think this will need to sit in my brain for awhile. Thoughts?

I am leaning toward the off-whites, coral, and red florals, with some (err...all) of the blue/coral florals. Thoughts appreciated!

reds and whites and black

I got Pretty Little Mini Quilts from the library a couple of weeks ago, and have been stuck on the "Spinning in Orbit" pattern. I love the appliqued circles on the straight seams. The circles echoing those in a print. The use of color, with it not being too matchy matchy (my problem, in colors and shapes and themes). Yet it all matches.

At The Cotton Shop last weekend, I found some red and black and white, and red and white prints. They kind of remind me of the Timeless Treasures Taxi and Kiwi lines, which I love, but can't quite wrap my brain around, with all that yellow and lime. But red and black. That I can do. Anyway, this is what I left with:

And in trying to figure out the name of the Kiwi line was, I found this Timeless Treasures pattern for Taxi. Which, OOH!, reminds me of Spinning in Orbit. I like it--though it's too something for me. Busy, maybe. Or, maybe, just plain old too yellow.

And! While exploring the various blogs linked on the Los Angeles Modern Quilt Guild site, I found this. Very cool. I wonder if I could do it in red and black and white. Or MORE colors??? Hehe.

So I started drawing. And shortly thereafter came to the brilliant conclusion that doing a many colored plaid will involve years of shopping for the perfect lime/yellow, red/lime, etc etc prints. Not for me.

So, I went back to my reds and blacks.

The left is like Spinning in Orbit. I don't like it--I have the wrong fabrics to get a nice balance of light/dark, red/black/white, and shapes. The right is more like the Taxi pattern. I like that more, but I am planning to hang this on a cabinet end in my kitchen. I like the long narrow, but have too many prints and not enough cabinet width.

So:

There it is. The Plan. Darkest at the bottom in the widest strip, getting narrower and lighter/less dense to the top. Appliqued circles--maybe a hexagon or 2--to echo the prints, but the largest applique will be near the top, the smallest near the bottom. Darkest at top, lightest at bottom. I think. I also went and got a black/white print (which is in the dryer now, so I can't share), as I had 2 red/whites and no black/white. I may lose one of the red/whites. Have to see as we go along. I am hoping to start today, but with 1 napping boy, 1 on an errand with dad, and a dinner to cook, we'll see.