Percolating

Here's something that caught my attention on the bike trail recently. I don't know what plant the white berries are from, but there are bunches of them. I thought it was interesting the way they popped off the tan backdrop - sort of the taupe palette thing I've read about lately. I know quite a few quilters who like to work in this monochromatic color scheme. But I must admit, I was thinking it might be a little blah for an art quilt. Then I noticed little pops of red around the central cluster of white berries. These were a surprise and I thought they were just what a piece would need to add interest to an otherwise neutral palette. They add more than just an accent, I think. They add something unexpected. I thought about how Joen Wolfrom teaches that every thing you need to know about color you can learn from observing nature.

So I brought a sample of each color home and proceeded to match them to fabric in my stash. The white berry (sitting on the brown fabric at the bottom) turned out not to be white after all, not even cream really. It has a slight greenish tint to it. The rose hip is my very favorite shade of red. And the dried-up fern plays to my love of brown neutrals. I think I'm going to try something abstract, but I haven't quite settled on how to approach it yet.

In the meantime, today heralds the arrival of a grandniece. Yikes, that makes me feel old. I just realized I've been thinking of this baby as a niece, but in fact, her father is my nephew. No matter, there aren't many females on this side of the family, so we welcome her heartily. And of course, a girly pink quilt is in order! This is actually a pretty poor picture of a variety of pinks I pulled from my stash today. I noticed that the little girl's mother has decorated with green and yellow accents, different from my thought of adding purple to the pink. I really liked the way it looked so have a few laid out here too.