Bubble, bubble, toil and...

I'm still exhausted and I have far too much work to do to be blogging, but my crafting mojo is slowly coming back and I'm just too excited about this upcoming project to not talk about it.

I'm a member of the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild. I'm not very good at being part of a group, but this group fits me to a T. I've made awesome friends and I'm so inspired after every meeting. Last night, Paula taught us the six-minute circle, and I swear to God, my brain did some flip-flops and she completely blew my mind.

Last night, Jacquie unveiled an enormous pile of charm packs from Robert Kaufman. I am such a solid fabric kind of girl, and just seeing all those colors together made me slightly giddy. Our next guild challenge is to take one of the five color stories and make a quilt. We can add as much fabric as we like, but it all has to be solid, and we have to use every color in our charm pack. My mind is SO full of ideas and I can't wait to start.

I'm not very good at documenting my crafting process, so I thought I'd give it a whirl with this project. Let's start with the colorways (pictures from RobertKaufman.com):

The Brights were my first choice. Those greens just reach into my heart and give a good hard tug. And the orange? The orange is magnificent.

But I didn't want to go with my first instinct. I wanted a challenge, a pallete I wouldn't normally use.

The Classic pallete. Those purples! The hot pink! Too close to my comfort zone.

The Pastels. Listen, the last thing I am is a pastel girl but these colors all together...they're dynamite. Hannah picked this colorway, and we agreed that it's the orange that really makes it sing. I can't wait to see what she does with it.

The Darks. Aren't these dreamy? But I worked with a lot of navy blue Kona last year, and this was kind of the pallete for my parents' quilt. So that left...

The Dusty pallete. This is definitely out of my comfort zone, and these are shades I haven't really used before, not even in my knitting. Also, I think it'll look really spectacular with our new couches. They're kind of a creamy beige. In this palette, I think I'm most uncomfortable with the rose. For someone who really likes hot pink and red, I'm not into rose and mauve. It reminds me of a parlor, maybe like the one Almanzo's family had (you know, Famer Boy, Laura Ingalls Wilder's husband).

So! That's what I'm starting with. I am so, so excited about this challenge, and I can't tell you how grateful I am to the folks at Robert Kaufman. Thanks for being so generous.

Next up: sketches! And I'm not a confident artist, so this will be SUPER FUN.