Color Crave - Wake Up to Kona

Is there anything better for January doldrums than color?

 

A quilt flower?

 

Today I'm celebrating color on my day in the

Wake Up to Kona Blog Hop

 

Thank you Madame Samm at Sew We Quilt and Carol at Just Let Me Quilt for putting this hop together.

 

 

Amanda Murphy's new book, Color Essentials, is full of information in color study and has great projects using Kona palettes.   I've almost worn my copy out, already.

 

I love the study of color and use it everyday at home and at work.

 

 

I used my fat quarter bundle of  Kona Sunset by Robert Kaufman to make

"Tropical Sunset."

 

 

I was unable to picture a sunset with this quilt.  Mother nature just didn't give me our usual beautiful sunset.  What she did give me, was the moon.

 

 

 

Color Burst was the first quilt to catch my eye in Color Essentials.  The angles looked like a challenge I wanted to try.

 

 

I used Black Kona as the background.

In her book, Amanda Murphy talks about using "Poison Colors" - colors directly opposite on the color wheel to add interest and movement to a design.  I decided to take that advice and use orange as the binding color. 

 

 

The orange really fits with a sunset and added a little pop.

I quilted the main part with free motion flowers using Aurifil thread and wavy lines on the water (teal) part.

 

Amanda has an excellent tutorial for continuous bias binding on her blog. 

This was my first  bias binding, by the way.  Love.

 

 

Here's a picture of the back with Kona solid.

The quilt is about 70".

 

I couldn't stop with one project from the book. 

 

I had to test the Illusion Pillow.

 

Try, try, again!

It is amazing how one fabric can look a little different by changing the background.

 

I used my word for the year, try, and free motioned it onto the little squares.

 

I love the way Kona solid fabric shows quilting.  I used pebbles in the background and love the texture it gives.

 

 

 

 

 

Once I played with Kona Sunset I really needed to see what I could do with Kona Sunrise.  I had some rollups and made a pattern.

 

"My Ombre Heart"

 

 

The roll up made this quilt easy to do in ombre.  I picked the colors in the order they were in the rollup and used Kona white for the background. 

 

Finally a pretty sky.

 



This one is quilted with hearts and stipple.  It is about 52" square.  The binding is pieced with different colors from the quilt. 

 

bad lighting, but took this picture last minute to show the quilting.

 

Thank you Robert Kaufman, Auriful, and Amanda Murphy for sponsoring this hop.

 

This has been so much fun. 

 

I love the book, I love the fabric, I love the thread.

 

Be sure and visit my day mates for great Kona inspiration:

 

January 13

Creatin’ In The Sticks ME

Meadowbrook

Cathy’s Chatter

Selina Quilts

Sew Fresh Quilts

The Sassy Quilter

 

 If you have made it this far, you deserve a chance to win.  There is a giveaway :)

 

 

A Kona Sunrise rollup.

Anyone can win, just make sure I can reach you if you aren't registered with Google

 

Just leave me a comment.  If you are a new or a faithful follower, leave another comment telling me how you follow.  That's 2 chances to win!

 

Giveaway is now closed.

 

Charlotte is the winner!!

 

The giveaway ends at the end of the hop 11:00 pm est January 21, 2014.

 

Have a colorful week,