The Road to Fortune

It's my turn to be the "Queen Bee" for That Stash Bee in February so I got myself all organized and ready today.  :)  This bee focuses on traditional blocks made in modern fabrics, but the Queen Bee doesn't send fabric out.  Each participant uses her own fabrics in the specifically-asked for colors.

I asked the girls if they minded doing paper-piecing since some people really do, but I got a resounding "Go for it!" so I did.  After breaking out my Electric Quilt software and designing some really fun quilts I will definitely have to come back to in the future, I decided on the Road to Fortune or Wheel of Fortune Block.

Here's a vintage quilt I found on flickr

This block just drew me in.  There are so many possibilities with this block based on how you lay out the coloring.  But you know me--there wasn't a doubt in my mind what my color choices would be.  Bright and colorful!  I thought about using neon colors--that would have been fun.  But I didn't know how many people had neons in their stash, I don't really.

So, I settled on using these color inspirations:

via this awesome shop

via Design-Seeds

And with all of that bright color running through the quilt, I asked the girls to use white and light gray fabrics for the background.  I thought it would be fun to use some low-volume fabrics though, so I told them solids or low-volume was fine.

Here's my sample block.

The only problem was finding a 12-inch block template for them to use.  I couldn't really, so I made my own.  I printed the templates EQ gave, scanned them and then went over all of the lines to make my own digital file of the templates.  Hopefully it works...

I can't wait to see what the my bee-mates come up with.  I hope they find this block as intriguing as I did.  Now if only I could send out all of the other ideas I've got floating around in my head and have people make them for me...

Here's a mockup of how it might look.  LOVE IT!!!  What traditional blocks do you love that you'd love to make modern?  My list is long...

Another Vintage Cake

So...I checked it out again.  I just gotta break down and buy this book.  The cakes are delicious.

via Amazon

This time around, I had a specific purpose in making cake.  While searching for the tortillas I bought last week straightening my pantry, I found a jar of seedless blackberry jam the kids and I put up either last summer or the summer before.  I didn't label it which I usually do, but I'm pretty sure it's from early last summer.

Well, with like 2 1/2 jars of open jam in the fridge and 2 jars of cherry and 1 cran-grape in the pantry, I didn't think we'd get around to using this one so I wanted to make a jam cake with it.  And lo and behold, Vintage Cakes has a jam cake recipe.

Cake and some tea--a perfect afternoon snack

Jam cakes are traditional favorites and perfect for a vintage cake cookbook.  The jam isn't used as a filling between layers, it's used as an ingredient in the cake to add sweetness and density.  And while the traditional icing or glaze is a caramel or burnt sugar, Julie added a chocolate component to the mix.  Oh my!

So last night for desert we had Blackberry Jam Cake with Chocolate Caramel Ganache!  Oh My Heavens!

I was short on time yesterday (and short on pans) so I baked this up in a bundt instead of the 3 8-inch rounds Julie suggests.  So I also just glazed the cake instead of icing it and adding sliced almonds like she did.  Her's is much prettier.  But mine was devoured and sent to school to spoil some teachers today.

Julie's pretty cake

Luckily for you, I found Julie's recipe online at epicurious.com so you can make it tonight...  You won't be sorry.

A Cowl-Neck Top for me

My friend Jenny who must dream of fun, easy, fashions every night has another new pattern coming out that I agreed to test for her.  This one is a cowl-neck top for women.  It's made with a stretchy knit and I had been saving just such a knit for a fun dress, but decided to use some of it here.  I thought about just making this fun top into a dress, but since I'm testing out the pattern, I decided to actually follow it.  ;)

I couldn't believe the simplicity of this pattern.  Jenny's mind works so differently than mine, I'm always amazed how she sees things so simply that seem confusing to me.  Seriously, I had this top done in 45 minutes from printing out the pattern pieces to wearing it and that was with some machine errors when my Viking got in a fight with my stretchy knit.

Seriously--I love the base this pattern gives you.  You could easily lengthen it to a tunic or dress length.  You could alter the shoulder seams to adjust the neckline from cowl to ballet to off-the-shoulder.  You could use a sweater knit for winter weather or a thin silky knit like I did for warmer weather.  You could make it tighter or looser.  You can add a belt or you could use elastic thread at the bottom to smock the waist and hips in tight.

And in a solid color, this top would be great under a cardigan for those in-between weather days.

I was given this pattern to test it for errors and for fit issues, and am in no way compensated to rave about it.  But seriously--if you're wanting to do some fashionable garment sewing, start with Jenny's patterns.  :)

2 Finishes!!!

Welcome to the weekend everyone!  I have 2 finishes to share you with you today but only one is sewing related, so let's get the personal one out of the way first...

I RAN A HALF MARATHON TODAY!!!!  My race is in a month and I needed to do the whole distance to make sure I was physically and mentally ready for it.  Many training plans never have you run the whole distance since adrenaline and the crowd will push you farther than you think, but that's not how I operate.  I needed to know.  Especially since I've been a little iffy with the training plan I'm "following."  I took off most of the month of December because of Santa Shop/class parties/Christmas so I was huffing and puffing through a 5K a few weeks ago.

So at 11 this morning I set out to run 4 miles/walk 1 mile twice and then finish the last 3.1 miles the best I could.  I tried to prepare like I will on race day with water/gatorade/snacks etc.  The first 4 miles went great.  The second 4 miles had a creeper pull over on the side of the road and watch me run till I turned around and then he drove off.  Gross...   By mile 9 I wanted to quit something fierce, but I wanted to be able to tell Chris I'd run it all.  He does such a good job encouraging me and being proud of me for running and I wanted to be able to tell him I did it.  So I kept on.  I ran and walked the last 3 miles, but my goal for the race is to finish under 3 hours, so when I looked down at my watch and I had like 26 minutes to finish and I was tired but not totally-exhausted-can't-move-tired I tried to run as much as I could.  I finished mile 11 and then walked a little but ran most of the last mile.  And then I ran as fast as I could for the last .25 miles which wasn't fast, but I tried.  I clocked in at 3:00:15.  Boo-freakin-yah! Now I know I can do it and I'm hoping that afore-mentioned adrenaline and crowd will get me through even faster.

I "iced" in my pool so I wouldn't have to sit around with ice packs all over me...Thank goodness I live in Florida!!!

So...on to a sewing finish.  As I mentioned earlier this week, I finished up Hayden's baby quilt a few days ago and wanted to show it off here before I give it to the little miss.

I used Holly's ColorBlock Quilt Pattern and changed up some dimensions to match the fabric I had on hand. Holly's pattern is awesome and very easy to follow.

I quilted the colored sections with a wavy line on my machine stretched out to 58.6 and as wide as it would go (7).  I left the embroidered section alone and just quilted-in-the-ditch around it (except for when my stitching got a little off...)

I had a really bad headache the day I quilted this, so it's less than stellar in a few places, but I'm hoping that my non-crafty friends won't care.  I know Hayden won't.

I would highly recommend Holly's pattern (which I bought with my own money just really like).  It's not only a great quilt on it's own, but is so easy to alter to make it bigger/smaller/fit your fabrics, whatever.  It would be great for novelty prints as well.

I also did finish that secret block, but since I can't show it just yet, we'll just leave that there.

I'm off to put my feet up and rest awhile and drink LOTS and LOTS of water.  Have a great weekend everyone!  We're going to the Medieval Faire tomorrow because Emma wrote an essay in class for it that won an award so we got free tickets to go the day she gets her award.

Random Thursdays

Another Thursday and you know I've always got some randomness up my sleeve...  :)

--I decided yesterday after my post to make Oren's quilt a little harder on myself (WHY???) and do different stars.  Right now I've got it laid out with 20 blocks and only a couple of repeats, but with changing up the fabrics, they should all look different...what do you think?  I haven't cleared it with the boss man yet, but I don't think he'll care as long as it gets done.

The fabrics will differ from what's on here, but I've never tried to figure out how to upload my fabrics into my EQ5...

--I haven't felt too good over the last few days so I decided on a whim to curl my hair today after seeing a pin on pinterest about it.  I'm sitting at my computer with hot rollers in...I'll let you know if it helps lift my mood.

--My race is in a MONTH!!  AHHHHHHHH!!!  I couldn't run at all yesterday due to shin splints (AGAIN!).  I'm going to try and get new insoles this weekend while in Gainesville.  I had planned on doing a full 13.1 mile practice run tomorrow but I don't know if I can with these shins.  We'll see...

--I'm going to the post office today after having bee blocks ready to send out for 2 weeks.  geesh.  If they opened at 8 I'd probably go when I dropped the kids off in the morning but sitting in town for half an hour somehow seems like too much of a burden in the mornings.

--I pinned this recipe this morning and within 10 minutes more than 20 people had repinned it.  Must have made the front page...they sure look good don't they?  I kinda want to make them right now.  Luckily I'm out of both pretzels and caramel bits.

Source: dessertnowdinnerlater.blogspot.com via Kelli on Pinterest

--I get to pick the block next month in our traditional blocks meet modern fabrics bee That Stash Bee.  I've got it narrowed down to a few choices but haven't decided for sure on block or color or purpose of making these blocks...

--I'm working on that secret block I mentioned a few weeks back today.  It seems incredibly simple but involves printing onto fabric and surprisingly  I've never done that.  Fonts are a weakness for me, so it'll probably take me as long to choose fonts and print correctly as it will to construct the block...  I am a sucker for a free font and have WAY TOO many on my computer.  That's why I have a degree in (ag.) communication--words are important to me.  ;)

Okay--I'll leave it there for today.  I still need time to choose fonts, print, sew up these blocks AND take my hot rollers out and comb out the curls...

Thanks for stopping by and reading my silliness.  :)  And don't forget to head over to Cindy's to see everyone else's thoughts for the day and leave her a sweet message because she thinks she has the flu.  :(

WIP Wednesday

Hi all!!  Ahh, a Wednesday with both finishes and works in progress!  Yay!  I'm really trying to stick to my new stop thinking and get it done plan.  #finishit2013 on Instagram has been a real boost to see what everyone else is finishing up too.

So...for finishes this week I have Hayden's baby quilt and 2 Something New Sampler Blocks.  More info on all of these projects later in the week but here's a sneak peek...

And as for WIPs--the next thing to finish up in my WIP basket is Oren's star quilt.  I'm making him a star quilt for his Star Wars' themed birthday party (2) years ago...  I'm just trying to decide if I want to do all wonky stars or mix it up with lots of different stars...either way this is a project that I've put off starting, so it's time to get it done.

Here are my fabrics.

I'm hoping this one goes quick.

Also on the to-do list are

--Emma's Stargazing Blocks

--The Scraptastic Block for the Something New Sampler.
--My February Lady Sweater (this beast is taking forever!!)

--Sorting my scraps (still....)

So, all in all, I feel like I'm making a dent in my WIP basket while starting some new things at the same time. Ahh, balance.  I wouldn't say I'm there yet, but I feel better about it...

Don't forget to head over to Lee's to see what everyone else is up to this week as well.

A Mistake turned delicious

I mentioned last week that I had a hankering for a grapefruit tart and the grapefruits to make it.  Saturday afternoon Emma and I set out to do just that.

We made the crust, using shortbread cookies and baked it off in a springform pan since I don't have a tart pan.

We juiced enough grapefruits and oranges to make 2 cups of juice and mixed them with egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch and salt in a pan to make the custard.  I got it going and then asked Emma to constantly stir it for me while I grated some grapefruit peel for the final step.

And then it went wrong...my idea of constantly stirring a cooking custard and Emma's are different.  I asked her if she was stirring and she said "Yeah, but it's kinda hard to stir with all this stuff stuck to the bottom..."

So much for the grapefruit tart...  It was so burned to the bottom that even immediately pulling the custard and pushing it through a sieve to get any burned bits out and adding the zest and butter--the result still tasted like burnt custard.  boo.

She was really upset and felt awful.  I got over myself and my tart of dreams and told her that she was more important than any dessert and making mistakes is how you learn...  Besides, I still have 2 grapefruits I hadn't cut into yet to have for breakfast with lots of cane sugar and broiled!  yum!

We decided to make a cheesecake instead.  I had 3 blocks of cream cheese sitting in the fridge waiting to be used.  I tend to buy it thinking I make a lot of cheesecakes and I NEVER make cheesecakes.  So we did.

I wanted to make a pina colada version that sounded tasty and light but Em wanted plain.  Chris and Oren didn't care.  So plain is what we got.

It's a great basic cheesecake.  Simple to make and simple to look at.  I thought of swirling some homemade cherry jam throughout it but didn't.   Next time...  Honestly, if you've never made cheesecake because it seems to hard, try this recipe.  It's no harder than a batch of brownies and the results are great.

Here's the recipe:

Deluxe Cheesecake
1 packet graham crackers, crushed (we used shortbread cookies)
1/4 cup sugar
6 T. melted butter (we used 2 T)
3 (8-oz) packages cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I used noticeably more...I love it!)
1 (16-oz) container sour cream (I did half sour cream and half greek yogurt 'cause that's what I had)
3 T. sugar
1/2 t. vanilla extract (again with the more of this)

--Combine crumbs, sugar and butter.  Mix well.  Press mixture into an ungreased 10-inch springform pan.  (We did all of this in the food processor and used a 9-inch pan.  Then we baked it for 10 minutes since that's what the original tart called for.)  Set aside.

--Beat cream cheese at high speed with an electric mixer until creamy.  Gradually add 1 cup of sugar, beating well.  Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition.  Stir in 1/2 t. vanilla.  Pour into prepared crust.  Bake at 375 for 35 minutes or until cheesecake is set.  (I added more vanilla and added a loaf pan half-full of water to the oven to create more moisture in the oven while the cheesecake baked.)

--Beat sour cream (and yogurt in my case) at medium speed for 2 minutes.  Add 3 T sugar and 1/2 tsp vanilla; beat 1 more minute.  Spread over cheesecake.  Bake at 400 for 5 minutes   Cool to room temperature on a wire rack.  Cover and chill for 8 hours.

Go ahead and give it a try.  And don't be afraid to swirl in some jam or put some kind of topping on it.  Chris wanted a can of cherries, but I hate them and never buy them.  Emma wanted chocolate sauce but she's a chocoholic at age 8 so I told her to eat her plain cheesecake and like it.  ;)  And she did.  Multiple times.  She asked if she could have a piece for breakfast this morning.  I told her not till she was an adult and could choose her own breakfast.  Till then she was stuck with semi-healthy foods.  ;)

This is all that's left...yep, we liked it!

I'm linking up with Debbie and her Tuesdays at the Table Party.  There's always goodness over there, so check it out.

Something New

I mentioned last week that I was going to participate in the Something New Sampler Blog Hop.  There are all kinds of techniques that are going to be covered from bargello to sashiko to pinless curves.  I'm interested to try these techniques--many of them new to me--in small doses.  Plus the 7x14 inch block design intrigues me as I'm trying to push myself out of my comfort zone this year.

The first block was actually introduced last week, so I'm already a week behind, but that's fine.  I'll just do 3 blocks this week instead of two.  So, up for me this week are bargello by Amy (from last week), a folded technique by Heidi, and a scraptastic technique by Chelsea.

All of the blocks look fairly simple to do so I'm definitely going to be finishing these up this week.  I've said it--now I must do it.  ;)

I decided to go with a color scheme to keep myself from making it too crazy, so after a glance at my color pinboard I went with

via design seeds

And these are the colors I pulled to start with. I'm not sure they match the picture exactly.  I ended up not having much salmon-colored pinks, so I deviated a little.  And their greenish brown became a khaki for me.  Still, I think it's a starting point at least...

I've got that little baby quilt I showed last week finished and drying.  I'll try and show it off tomorrow.  What are you working on this week??

A cutesy finish

Another quilt top is done!!!  This one, as I mentioned on Wednesday is for a dear friend of mine and her third little bundle of joy.  Little Miss Hayden is a well-loved baby girl already and I wanted to give them something to show our love for her too.

So, I took Holly's Colorblock Pattern and made some adjustments.  I cut the top down from 6 horizontal strips to 5 since that's how many fabrics were in my bundle.  I also cut down the dimensions of the blocks to make the quilt a little smaller.

Then instead of adding another fabric for the vertical strip, I used a solid brown and hand-embroidered Hayden's name to add a personal touch.  I just put a layer of thin batting behind it while embroidering it to give the fabric more weight to hold the stitches.

So this morning when I went to cut away the extra batting--yep, I did it.  I cut right through the brown fabric too.  :(  Like a quarter of an inch away from the E in Elizabeth!  But rather than toss it (since I don't have enough of that brown left over and really didn't want to re-embroider the name anyway!!) I decided to just trim down both sides even and add in some extra brown.  Hopefully it won't be too noticeable.  I did some careful sewing around the E and I don't think it looks too bad.

I am considering doing different fmq stitching in each of the 5 fabric sections but I'm not sure yet.  I may just do an all-over design.  Suggestions??

This was such a quick and easy quilt top to make, I'd highly recommend it to anyone wanting a baby quilt quick.  And it was all from stash--so that makes it even better right??

Since I finished this on a Friday, I'm linking up with Amanda Jean and her Finish It Up Friday.

Another Random Thursday

Hello!  It's a cool and wet day around here.  The kind perfect for snuggling under a blanket and reading the day away with a good cup of something hot.  But, I've got some projects I'd like to get done and house that I'd like to get clean before we get to that, so I'm stalling by blogging instead...

Not too much random this week--here goes:

1.  When you trace letters to embroider with a water-soluble pen--make sure it IS water soluble and not air-dry.  Otherwise you'll get halfway through the first name and be out of luck...  Want to know how I know??

2.  It's hard to use your windows as a light box to retrace your disappeared letters when it's cloudy and raining outside...

3.  My friend Debbie is starting a sew-along of her awesome triple zip pouches.  I haven't made one yet, so I'm excited to join in and see what i can do.  I also have a bunch of zippers passed down to me by my Great-Grandma so I'm ready to use them up.  Then I can order some fun colored ones that I've seen all over the interwebs.   The actual sewing starts on January 28--so you've got plenty of time to gather up your supplies and make one too.

4.  I bought some grapefruit the other day (LOVE!) and want to turn it into a tart.  I've been craving one for awhile now.  Maybe this one...

photo via Southern Living

5.  Tomorrow is Literacy Dress-Up Day at school and I got off lucky.  Emma's class each got a word to dress-up to describe.  She got drowsy!  YES!!!  So, she's wearing her pjs, messy bed-head and some slippers.  The words were a mix of easy and hard to show--cowhand (easy), tropical (easy), mammoth (I can just see us making her a trunk...), foe (spy wear??) and frail (Oren said she should dress up as glass...)  So, I was happy with drowsy.  Oren is supposed to dress as a character from a book.  He chose Ty from Dark Life.  He's a teenager that is a pioneer living on the ocean floor in the future.  Honestly, it's a great book, especially for boys.  But anyway, he chose it on his own and sent me to Walmart to get a black shirt and pants to wear as a divesuit.  Now he wants me to get him black boots and a black watch he can use for his sonar measuring.  I told him we'd convert his Transformers watch...

6.  I think this new Something New Sampler from Craft Buds sounds interesting.  The blocks will all be a 7" x 14" size which should be interesting to say the least. I'm trying to make myself do more non-traditional piecing and this one sounds fun.  There are prizes for participation, no matter how much or how little you participate, so that is great incentive as well.

Okay, I'm off to retrace those letters and get busy stitching before they disappear again.  ;)

I'll be linking up with Cindy and all of the other awesome random-thinking bloggers.

WIP Wednesday

One of my dearest local friends had her third child on New Years Eve.  Her oldest is 3 weeks younger to the day than Emma and they've been friends their entire lives.  Her son is a year and a half younger than Oren and thinks Oren hung the moon.  When I asked him if he wanted the baby to be a girl or a boy--he said he hoped it was an Oren!  haha  I was rolling on the floor laughing.  :)

So when baby #3 arrived, I wanted to make her something special.  But they didn't find out what they were having, so I waited until this week to get started on making them a quilt.  I pondered a few ideas 2 nights ago and decided to finally make Holly's Colorblock Quilt.  I've loved this one for a long time (like since she introduced it) but I'd never bought the pattern.

So I did.  Then yesterday afternoon I went through my fabric stash and decided on a bundle I'd bought at JoAnn I don't even remember when and pair it with some Kona solids I had laying around.  Only one problem--the pattern called for 6 fabrics and my bundle only had 5....  So I altered the pattern.  I removed the bottom stripe (the orange one in the above picture) and then altered the dimensions of the other blocks to make them a little smaller.  I wanted this quilt to be more like a lovey that she can carry around once she's walking, so I graded everything down a little.

Night-time pictures are the worst, aren't they?  

Yesterday evening while Oren was in the bath I managed to get the quilt almost 3/4 of the way done.  This pattern is so easy to put together and so well-written.  Holly did a great job explaining--even though it's simple she didn't assume you know what to do just based on the picture.

But, I'm adding a twist to the quilt.  Whenever I do a baby quilt, I love to embroider baby's name on it. It makes it a little more personal.  So, that's where I'm at this afternoon.  I'm hand embroidering and then I'll just need to sew the sections altogether and call it a quilt top.

Hopefully tomorrow I can baste and quilt this one.  A baby quilt delivered before the baby is a month old...is that even possible from me??  We shall see.

Make sure to head over to Lee's to see what everyone else is up to on this fine Wednesday.

Preserving food and memories

I was cleaning out my fridge on Sunday afternoon and realized I had my own hoard of grapes that were on their way to the compost bin.  Now, I'll admit that I'm cheap a little thrifty and I HATE to throw food out.  So I decided to make some jam.

I accidentally bought seeded grapes a couple of weeks ago and while they were tasty, the kids hated the seeds and refused to eat them.  So I combined them with some "black" grapes we had and regular red grapes.  Apparently I forgot we already had some and bought more...  And then to both clean out the fridge more and add more fruit to our mixture, I threw in most of a bag of fresh cranberries.

I heated this mixture up until it was mashable and then the kids helped me mash the fruit over a sieve to get out all of the juice and pulp, leaving the seeds and skins behind.  I didn't mind small bits of pulp or skin getting in the mix, but I hate seeds in my jam. No one wants to bite down on a seed during a breakfast of biscuits and jam.  :)

Then we boiled the fruit with a little touch of grape juice from the fridge, some cinnamon, ginger, and a little vanilla and about 2 cups of sugar and hoped for the best.  I know the sugar is necessary to help with the gelling process, but I hate having more sugar than fruit in something I'm giving the kids, so I always add as little as I think I can get away with and then add a little more here and there.  ;)

The kids even helped me pour it into jars--it only made a pint and half.  But for an impromptu fridge-cleaning turned food preservation lesson, I'm happy with our little experiment.

And the color turned out so pretty, it makes me smile.

So many of my friends are afraid of canning, and while there are precautions you need to take to ensure food safety, I always encourage people to try it.  It's easy, especially when you do small batches like we did on Sunday.  While a pantry full of canned jams and jellies is great--there's no shame in making a jar or two here and there when the need arises.

I'm linking up with Debbie and her Tuesdays at the Table party.

Color

In December when I participated in the SMS Giveaway Day(s), I asked people to tell me their most and least favorite colors to stash.  I found the results very interesting.  I stated that I have a ton of yellows, reds, and blues (especially aqua) and that my stash is smallest in orange and purple (most of my purple was given to me or bought for Emma!).  Funny enough I love orange, but don't seem to buy much of it.  And I'm on-again-off-again with green, black and brown.

The results somewhat surprised me and made me think about buying fabric in a new way.  Actually I thought it would be fun to do more research on this topic and then compile some sort of report for fabric houses to know what we're looking for.  Of course I'm sure they already employ someone who does that but if not...Moda, Art Gallery, Robert Kaufman, Michael Miller...I'm available!

I had 486 comments, many which were duplicate entries (the I follow you! sort), so nearly 250 were actual comments about color.  And the overall winner of favorite color to buy/stash was blue with a total of 62 votes.  But not only that--aqua itself was named 25 times.  Seems I'm not alone in my love for that bright color.  :)

That little pile on the top left is flannels and multicolored fabrics that I couldn't figure out where to put.  :)  And see, I told you I loved me some blue and aqua!

Second place went to green (with lime mentioned multiple times) with a total of 47 votes.  Then pink with 32, red with 21, gray with 17, orange and purple tied at 16, yellow had 11 and brown was the last mentioned with 5.

I was surprised by these findings.  I mean I see I'm not alone in leaning towards certain colors, but aqua as it's own subgroup had more likings than red, gray, orange, purple, etc.  And pink was more than all of those!    I love pink but never even thought about it when describing my own fabric stash.

And honestly, I was surprised that blue and green were the top picks.  I don't know why, really, but I just never really think of green.  Toni and I were talking on IG the other day about this.  She said she had more green fabrics than anything else.  I found that a lot of people said that when commenting.  Their blue or green stashes far outweighed everything else.

As far as dislikes/least stash Purple was the hands down winner (or loser...).  It seems we are quite divided on purple.  Twelve people mentioned it as their least favorite.  Orange had 7 votes with red at 6, yellow at 4 and brown, green, pink and aqua each getting mentioned twice as well.

Please excuse the Quaker Oatmeal Man in the middle of my stash.  He's actually holding on to old  EPP projects of my Great Grandmothers AND supporting the middle of that shelf so my top shelf of pre-cuts doesn't sag.  :)

This showed me that I'm not alone in my meager stash of orange and purple.  But I got to thinking--is it that we don't like these colors or that we don't buy them?  I love orange, but I keep a small amount of it.  Is it because there's less orange (and purple for that matter) on the market?  Is it because these colors are harder to picture online or even what to do with them at home?

Or is buying fabrics more emotional for many of us?  Are we drawn to greens and blues because they are calming and make us feel happier.  Do I (and many others) love aqua because it reminds us of fun times at the beach/lake/vacation in general?  Are we less likely to buy orange because it feels too bold or brash to us?  Does it make us think solely of Halloween or fall?  Are we more likely to buy this color in the fall?

And what about those middle-of-the-road colors?  Like red?  I was surprised to see it in the middle of both the likes and dislikes.  I LOVE red and am incredibly drawn to it, but only a very true, clear red.  My stash is almost completely a Crayola version of "red."

It seems like "traditional" quilters are often drawn to darker shades of color than "modern" quilters.  Or maybe darker and muter.  It seems that modern quilters like bright, clear color choices no matter the specific color.  Would you agree?  Are we just stepping away from what previous generations adored or is it something more?

So--I've accomplished nothing with this post other than hopefully making you think.  Think about what you like and what you use.  Are you drawn to certain colors more often than others?  Are you drawn to particular shades of that color?  Do you have emotional ties to certain colors?  Share with us in the comments.  Let's discuss one of quilters favorite things--choosing and buying fabrics.  Tell me why you pick what you do.

p.s.  I DIDN'T even straighten my shelves for this post as I just wrote it and took photos on a whim.  Sorry for all you OCDers out there that are wishing you could fix my piles.  This is as close to neat as my shelves usually get...  ;)