Thursday, November 18, 2010

In Search of Pink

Bonnie Hunter just posted the first clue for her new mystery quilt: Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll. Since she's on the east coast and I'm on the west, I got to read it "early." (It was around 10:30 Pacific Time when it occurred to me to check her blog.)

I love sewing Bonnie's mystery quilts, but this time I had pretty much resigned myself to watching the fun from the sidelines because I didn't have any double pinks. I've got a good selection of chocolate browns, and a lot of great greens, oodles of neutrals, but very few pinks of any sort. (Yeah, I know we can substitute other another color scheme, but I didn't feel confident choosing one until I could actually see what the quilt was going to look like.) And running out to buy new fabric right now is not an option.

I briefly flirted with the idea of using my '30s fabrics because most of my pinks fall into that catagory. But I think they'd look odd with the chocolate browns I have. Then I remembered my Ohio Star stash.

Ages ago I decided that I wanted to make an old-fashioned looking Ohio Star quilt and set aside a bunch of fabrics for it. Well, I never got around to making that quilt, so I forced myself to raid that drawer and scored a few more pinks. (Also some more really cool greens and browns.) Then I pulled out all the pinks from the rest of my stash and tried to decide which of them would play nicely together. A couple of the '30s reproduction prints might work. And wouldn't it be cool to include this cotton boll fabric? The rest are mostly from the '80s and '90s and some of them read more burgandy than pink.

And then it struck me: I have a $25.00 gift certificate for the local quilt store! Last month seven stores held a Halloween Shop Hop. And every store you visited entered you into a drawing for a gift certificate. I'm a freeway wimp, so I was only able to visit two of the nearest shops. I didn't buy anything; I just looked about, soaking in the inspiration and fondling the bolts of fabric. So you can imagine how flabbergasted I was when I was notified that I'd won the drawing. Yes -- I'm buying me some more pinks! (If there's a patron saint of quilters, I definitely owe her a candle.)

Update: I just realized that I should also search through my two bins of fabrics that have not yet been preshrunk. Maybe I'll find some pinks in there. (It's not stored with the rest of my stash, so I forgot about it.

10 comments:

Filled with quilty goodness said...

Gorgeous cotton boll fabric, and like you said on the yahoo group, perfect for this quilt.
I'm envious! ;)
Karen

Quilter Kathy said...

The perfect fabric for this quilt! Way to go...keep looking!

Cheryl Willis said...

sounds like you are getting inspired to get this going- looking forward to seeing your progress. I wonder how many bolts of that print are now going to sell - cw

Kathy ... aka Nana said...

I think you definitely need to include that fabric. I can't wait to see your progress, whether here on your blog or on the Quiltville chat!

Catholic Bibliophagist said...

Thanks, guys, for the encouragement.

The cotton boll fabric is out of print, I'm afraid. But I wonder if anyone else in the Quiltville group has some squirreled away. As I discovered, there's no telling what you'll find once you start digging through your stash.

Sharyn Mallow Woerz said...

too cute :)
Glad you'll be joining us!

Cheri said...

In answer to your question about the denim and flannel quilts wearing well. So far I have had no excesive wearing of the flannel. I do suggest double stitching each seam if it is a raggy quilt. Cheri from maintainingmypiece at blogspot dot com

Quiltinggirl said...

Wow! Isn't that just the perfect fabric for the RRCB! :o)

Catholic Bibliophagist said...

Thanks, Cheri, for taking the trouble to come over here to answer my question about the denim quilt.

(I was browsing through Cheri's blog's archives last night. That's one of the fringe benefits of reading Quiltvillechat -- finding links to so many interesting quilting blogs. All of you ladies are so talented!)

Michelle said...

That pink print is going to be just perfect for RRCB!