I am working on new blocks from a pattern called “Sisters’ Ten Sampler” in the book Sister Sampler Quilts.   My mom is doing the same quilt, but we are both using very different fabrics.   Gen X quilters did a BOM of this quilt back in 2013 and posted some tutorials that look pretty good, so I won’t repeat here.

The fabrics I chose from my stash are from the Mormor line by Lotta Jansdotter for Wyndham Fabrics.   The prints are a 1950’s / Modern look and would make good home decor prints, but will be applied in some very traditional block styles.

Grandmother’s Frame is the first block in the pattern.  Each month I plan to make two 12″ blocks with an identical pattern, but play with my color selections.  The pattern suggests fussy cutting the center square from a print.

I didn’t have any good prints to cut, so I added some raw edge appliqué cutouts I created with some fusible web and my Silhouette Cameo cutter.

Mormor line by Lotta Jansdotter

Have you ever used the red glasses to select colors for a quilt.  I’ve always wanted to walk around a fabric store wearing some.  You can’t choose colors or hues this way, but it would certainly help with choosing more variety in value or darkness.

I chose my colors for the first block without using the red or green value finders.  I was surprised how close the value was for the bright pink and the washed out grey in the block using the red filter.  I think the pink is simply too close to red to work well.  In this case, the green filter is probably more accurate for the pink and the red filter is more accurate for the teal.

If I graded my value selections in Light, Medium, Dark, then here are my grades;

Pink:  Medium to Dark
Teal:  Medium to Dark
Grey: Light

Grandmother’s Frame #1:

The second time around, I auditioned my fabrics with the filters.  Originally, I selected a yellow fabric for the rose and the corners.  However, the value of the yellow was too close to the light blue in the block, so the detail was easily lost or washed out.  I switched it out for the dark grey to give the block more contrast.    I also swapped the direction of values at the corners for the sister block.

Grandmother’s Frame #2:

For my next block, I will show you the tool I am using and the references it makes to the color wheel for selecting colors.