It's a Colorful Life

If there were more hours in the day, I'd create a blog on color like some of the other inspirational sites on the web that produce color story images like the one above. Since my schedule doesn't seem to be cooperating, I try to occasionally post photos that contain color combinations that inspire me.

The color story above is one that I think is really successful and I wanted to share because I think you'll agree that, if you like the colors, this family would be a great one to try in a quilt or other creative project. The thing that really makes this story successful to me, beyond the selection of the colors, is their relative values. They belong together in the same collection. This is like a soft and muted version of the colors I chose for my Lily's Garden Spice colorway:

In this color story, I worked to keep the same value across the colors, even though these are definitely deeper shades of the colors in the top image.

Although I really like the colors in the image below, the dark green is not working for me in the value shown. It stands out as being too deep a shade for the other colors selected and I would have pulled a green of relative value for that position. I think that a shade somewhere between the lighter and darker green, and a comparable value would have made this story more successful.

I adjusted the dark green in the image below and, personally, I feel the story works now. It's subtle, but it's like I just needed to "take the edge off" of the dark green to bring it into the same family of colors as the others.

As a designer, I feel as though I naturally extract the color stories from images I see, much like what has been done with these photos. Those who like what I do often refer to the colors I use in my fabric collections and quilt projects as the reason for their appeal or success.

If you who struggle with coordinating colors and want my advice, here you go: try to see the "families" of colors in the images you're drawn to because it's probably the relationship of those colors that is appealing and inspiring to you...just like all of the images on sites like Design Seeds and Photo Card Boutique. If you're feeling like you're stuck in a color rut, these sites can be a great source of color solutions and inspiration.

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A contest!

If you haven't heard, we have a few contests running on the Patrick Lose Studios Facebook page. Be sure to go to the page and LIKE to be instantly eligible for giveaways that begin Friday the 29th for Havel's scissors and a fat quarter Bundle of Fun from my Lily's Garden collection for RJR fabrics. We've topped 4000 fans on the page and are well on our way to 5000. When we hit that milestone, we're going to have more contests and you're gonna LOVE the prizes we'll be giving away then, too!

This colorway of Lily's Garden is called Spice and I think it's perfect for autumn. It will be in shops worldwide beginning this month so be sure to ask your local shop owner if they will be offering it. If not, you can always find it and lots of other FUN fabrics at PatrickLose.com.

A Great State Fair!

Another Iowa State Fair is history and it was definitely one to remember. We had a blast! All but a class or two were sold out and, although the weather was unbelievably perfect for most of the run, I think the rainy weather a couple of the days was to blame for the few empty seats. There were almost 700 quilts entered in the competition for which I was one of the judges and I loved having the opportunity to see each one up close. It was especially awesome to see the quilts in the junior division and the level of talent in Iowa’s young quilters. I’m certain there are more blue ribbons in their future.

Our sponsors were amazing and offered so much to the classroom to make each class enjoyable and educational for the students. I really want to thank RJR Fabrics, The Warm Company, Havel’s Sewing, Fons & Porter and Suzanne Sievers and The Stitch in Jefferson, Iowa for providing the great Janome machines that were a part of this and last year’s classroom. Suzanne was also on hand much of the time to help students in learning the fine details of the machines and to assist with our Piecing For Prizes competition which was another huge success this year!

One of the best things about the competition was the fact that my 12-year-old niece, Morgan, decided to give it a try. Even though she had never sewn before, she walked away with a quilt top she made in an hour and a half. That’s Morgan at the top of the post. Below are our first and second place winners in the competition, a mother/daughter duo who brought lots of energy and laughs along with them! Believe it or not, Christina (daughter) completed her quilt top in 36:42!

The photos that follow are a few memories from the fair. We’ve already begun
discussions to make next year’s fair even better, so start making your plans now
to get to the 2015 Iowa State Fair! I hope to see you there :)

 The building of this sand sculpture took place throughout the fair.

 

Next year, I'm sponsoring two food competitions and the 

winning recipes will be published in Quilting Celebrations magazine! 

The number of food entries is phenomenal.

The Patrick Lose Studios ribbon for "Best Machine Applique"
was awarded to this entry. Great job!

  The classroom

 

 

I awarded my "Best Use of Color" ribbon to this entry by Janeen Pearson.

From spring quilt market

Here's a fun piece of video I wanted to share from spring quilt market in Pittsburgh, back in May. Rob Appell asked if he could do an interview with me for The Quilt Show and the poor guy's camera broke down right before it was time to start. We're both easy-going about stuff like this and didn't let it stop us. Sooo....listen carefully because this was taped on an iPhone and there weren't any fancy editing tricks but Rob added some nice photos of projects from my Lily's Garden and Basically Patrick collections for you to see. It's a little taste of what's to come, soon. Thanks, Rob :)

Beautiful Bundles

Look what we'll have with us at the Iowa State Fair! Fat quarter bundles of my "Basically Patrick" collection from RJR Fabrics are making their debut at the fair so be sure to stop by our booth in the Fabrics & Threads department. The entire collection will also be available by the yard along with my Lily's Garden collection which has been chosen for the Iowa State Fair's 2015 raffle quilt.

Of course, if you can't make it to the fair, you'll also be able to get these at PatrickLose.com (soon) if your local quilt shop doesn't carry them.

That's all for now. I'm out the door to head back to the fairgrounds to judge the quilt blocks made from Lily's Garden that will be offered in next year's raffle quilt. I've seen a lot of them already and they're awesome! This is so much fun and I feel so honored to be a part of it.

See you at the fair!

Today, we're hitting the road to Iowa where I'll help judge the quilt competition and teach for 10 days at the Iowa State Fair! We can't wait to see family and friends and I'll be posting more as we get some miles behind us. Stay tuned :)

More Christmas in July

Judging from the emails we received about the photo in the last post, our feelings about Facebook are well-founded. Many of you fans of our machine embroidery page haven't even seen this new club offering yet.

In keeping with our Christmas-in-July theme, let us introduce our newest machine embroidery club, Merry Mini Mats. Our first designs were sent out in June and each month through November members receive a new round and square mini mat embroidery design with a Christmas theme. The second design, for July, will be delivered at the end of this month. We promise you'll love these new machine embroideries! For more info or to join, click here.

We've also had requests for doing these clubs for fusible applique aficianados. We'd like to know how many of you who don't do machine embroidery would like to have these designs delivered as templates for the applique method of your choice. We'll give this more consideration if the demand seems to be there. Sound off if you'd like this type of club for applique.

We also have two other embroidery clubs you may not know about. Each club brings you a new design every month. Click the covers for information or to join and, again, let us know if you're not a machine embroiderer and would like to see these designs made available for your favorite applique method.

Monthly Mug Mats & More

 

Applique Of The Month Club

Facebook becoming less and less "social"

Facebook is making it increasingly impossible for the things we post on our Facebook pages to reach you without our paying for that delivery. We're happy to pay for advertising when it's useful, but we don't think every comment we post is advertising or worth paying to get it to you. 

Because of this, we'll be getting back into blogging as a way of having all of our information in one, central location for you to visit and catch up on what's going on at Patrick Lose Studios. Be sure to subscribe to follow this blog and email updates will be sent to you so you don't miss anything!

As we posted on Facebook...and relatively few people saw: "How about a little Christmas-in-July conversation? As soon as we return to the studio after our Iowa State Fair gig, I'll be jumping into some serious designing for Christmas! What are some themes you'd like to see? What are some Christmas motifs you're looking for in machine embroidery applique?" Let us know what you think in a comment, below.