Color Value

I hope you all had a safe and fun Halloween! I haven't been home for Halloween the last few years (okay, so maybe I'm the Halloween Grinch and was home and just turned out all the lights and hid in my room with a book), so it was fun seeing all the kids and giving out candy. The news always makes a big deal about the older kids going out trick or treating - what's too old for trick or treating? I don't think there should be an age limit. I remember going out when I was in my teens and I always had a blast. All the teenagers that came to my door last night were polite, funny, and very inventive with their costumes. I heard "thank you" from them all.

Now lets just skip right by Thanksgiving...

I have been making lots of progress on making my Christmas gifts specifically in choosing the fabrics for each gift. My niece, who has a four year old daughter, is dating a very nice guy who has two little girls, ages two and three. For Christmas I was thinking of making each girl one of the scrappy puppies (remember my Patriotic Puppy).


I can talk about this project, my niece doesn't read my blog. The fabric is Moda's Sorbet. I bought a large fat quarter bundle, which is more than enough for the puppies, so I was thinking of making each girl a tiered ruffled skirt too. I think I'm going to have a lot of fun sewing both projects.

Nancy came over yesterday to sew. We both did a LOT of sewing but no finishes. The project I'm working on requires light, medium and dark fabrics, I put together this chart to help.

But it was still difficult. I think I need one of those red filter thingies that removes the color and just lets you see the value (tone?) of the fabric. Nancy helped me with block placement, it took quite a while for us to agree on the final placement - some of the blocks are a little "muddy", so trying to get strong value separation was very difficult. I wish I could show you a picture instead of being so cryptic, but alas the no peeking rule applies to this project.