Sunday, November 15, 2015

Nasturtiums, again

After some deliberation, one of my Nasturtium-inspired quilts is put together.



After the blocks were completed for this quilt, I shifted them around on my design wall for about a week before I decided to sew them into a top.  One of the decisions I went back and forth about was whether or not to leave in the yellow/yellow-orange colors that were in my original stack.  If I were going to try and mimic the exact colors of the nasturtiums, I would have to leave them in.  But there was something about them I didn't like after I put them with all of the red/reddish blocks.


Ultimately, I decided that I did not want to use these blocks and removed all shades of orange and yellow except for a dark shade of what I am going to call burnt orange. When placed near the reds in this quilt, this shade of orange does not pop out as orange.  It sort of masquerades itself - it's more subdued.  This can happen with colors.  They can appear differently to you when you put them together with other colors.  They can also be perceived  differently by different people. At any rate, the brighter yellows and oranges were just too bright for me and had to go.

Here is a portion of the quilt on my design wall, ready to be sewn together.


I also experimented with another setting option before I started sewing....


As you can see, I did not end up with this setting.  But I think it has some possibilities as a future quilt!

I finished putting all of the blocks together one day last week and had a 'photo shoot' outside with my daughter and our dog.  Both of my daughters are amused by my constantly carrying quilts around to put them in what they consider to be unnatural surroundings and taking pictures of them.  On this particular day, it was super windy, so we had to pin the quilt down, which worked only for a brief moment.

And, Darcy insisted on appearing in some of the shots.


The wind got the better of us in most of the others...
















 I never really did get a good flat shot out side.  But I like the way this one turned out, with the red leaves of my neighbor's tree peeking over the fence.  Things like red leaves make me really happy.



We also took some pictures near the actual nasturtiums.  These little gems will soon be gone for the winter, so I am picking them for my sewing table for as long as they hold on.








I used to associate a red and green color scheme with Christmas.  As I have gotten older my tastes have changed, however.  I find myself gravitating toward this complementary palette regardless of the season.