My Colorful World

I love color.  No doubt about it.  Can’t get enough of it.  From my fabric stash (of course!) to my wardrobe, shoes, even my cars.  No neutral palette for me!  Turquoise is my go-to blender – I can successfully pair just about any color with turquoise.  It is my happy place, and for good reason.  Who wouldn’t love to find themselves on a white sand beach lapped by warm turquoise water? Ahhhh, tropical bliss!  Picture any beach and, alongside the turquoise water, you’re sure to find a rainbow of color on the beach.  Beach towels and bathing suits of every hue line the sandy shoreline.  The flora and fauna also add bright splashes of color.

One of my favorite pastimes in these tropical beach locales is exploring the colorful world below the surface of the water.  This is easily done with a mask and snorkel and often provides me with hours of entertainment as I marvel at the life in these underwater gardens.

Maui snorkeling tour

The expansive variety of brightly colored fish is surpassed by the even more expansive variety of colorful coral in a healthy reef.  It is truly an inspiring sight.  If given the opportunity, I will don a scuba tank and explore these underwater parks up close – they are teeming with life.  It is exhilarating to swim alongside sea turtles or find yourself surrounded by a school of hundreds of fish.
Last month I mentioned a fun colorful monthly online event in which I’m participating.  Jen of Patterns by Jen (PBJ for short) is hosting her annual Monthly Color Challenge.  The theme this year is tropical fish, and each month Jen picks a fish and uses that fish’s color to make that month’s block.  The pattern for the block is free for the entire month, after which it is $1.  You can sign up here to automatically receive an email each month with a link to the free pattern.  Jen also does a free how-to video showing how to make the block each month.  Here is a link to the Monthly Color Challenge main page listing each month’s color and fish.
I am helping Jen out by blogging about the August block.  This month’s color is purple (which pairs beautifully with turquoise and is also one of my favorite colors), and the fish is a purple dottyback.

A purple dottyback

Yowza!  I love the color of these fish!!

I pulled out the light and dark purple fabrics from my stack of FIGO Stash fabrics (not quite as bright as a dotty) and quickly whipped up a pair of the August block from Jen’s blog post (the blocks are quite easy to do 😊).  If you read my blog last month, you saw the luscious range of colors in Stash that I’m using for my blocks.

My stash of Stash by FIGO

I am making one light/dark block following Jen’s pattern and also one “color”/background block per her instructions.  My background is FIGO’s Serenity gray dot on white – a great blender for my Stash palette.
So far, I’ve completed the blocks for January through August – just 4 more months to go.

January – green tiger barb

February – discus

March – cherry barb

April – electric blue hap

May – electric yellow lab

June – harlequin rasboras

July – silver dollar

Jen will be providing a set of finishing instructions at year end to turn your monthly blocks into a nice-sized lap quilt using the light/dark block from each month.  Because I have 2 blocks each month, my year-end quilt is going to be larger – queen-size in fact.  I hope you’ll follow along with me each month as I post photos of the current month’s blocks.
I’ve also been participating in a couple of magazine issues.  My Cobblestones quilt, featured in the joint Aug/Sept and Oct/Nov issue of Fons & Porter’s Quick + Easy Quilts, showcases the dee-lish and oh-so-colorful Wild Abandon by Heather Bailey for FIGO.

Cobblestones made with Wild Abandon

In this fat ¼ friendly throw-size quilt, I use magenta as my “neutral” – who knew that it could be a neutral?!?

Magenta is my neutral!

You can find a digital copy of the issue here.
I am also featured in the Fall 2024 issue of McCall’s Quilting with my Twist and Treat lap-size quilt made with Bonnie Lemaire’s Whiskers & Wine collection.

Twist and Treat with Whiskers & Wine

The tipsy cats in this adorable collection are a perfect fit for this quilt.

The lengthwise border stripe makes a purr-fect border

Quick + Easy Quilts is hitting newsstands today or you can get a digital copy here.

Stay tuned also for 8 new patterns coming to my Patti’s Patchwork website next week.  There just might be a special discount for my newsletter subscribers (the newsletter sign-up link is at the bottom of this page).
Cheers,
Patti