So & Sew

This is straight out of one of her emails.

Her website is https://tarafaughnan.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorjuHi7bN0X95cU6JqhAk0Vf4FAWsDYVxnDfVBDyHT8L6kOICYv

PATTERNS

VIDEO COURSES

QUILTS

A full quilt made up of hundreds of small 9-patch blocks.

IN THE STUDIO

Hello friend!

If you follow me over on Instagram, you'll know that for months, I've been making and posting photos of nine-patches. And if from those pictures you couldn't tell, they're really itty bitty.

I started cutting 1.5" squares so I’d have something to sew on the couch at night. No plan. No color palette. No real vision. Just a box of tiny squares to hand sew while binge watching TV.

Each nine-patch wasn't related to the other. I just choose color combinations that made me feel excited. I might start with only two colors in a 9-patch, then I might do two colors, but make the center square a third pop color. Then I might get really crazy and do all blues, but have 9 different blues and vary the value to still give that 9-patch checkerboard feel, but with only one color.

And I just kept going... ... and going and going.

I made about 150 blocks before I had even the faintest idea of what I was going to do with them. They piled up in my sewing room, cute tiny 9-patches with nowhere to go. Until one day, I decided maybe I needed to start trying to make them into a quilt instead of a pile.

I laid them out on my design wall in an X pattern, and stood back and observed. And after a bit, I took everything off the wall because I didn’t know what I was looking at and I still didn't know what I was doing with them and I was resisting feeling unsure...

So back into a pile they went. But, as I really liked making them, the pile just kept getting bigger.

Still lacking a vision after months of sewing these, one day I decided I had so many, what could it hurt to just sew nine of these wee blocks together and see what happens. I thought I could just mount little blocks on canvas if I could not figure out an entire quilt design.

And I really loved this little piece!! So I made another. And another...

Somewhere along the way, the colors started doing something interesting. I was clustering blocks by background color and letting that do some of the work. Not because I had a plan (I did not have a plan), but because I started paying attention to what I was seeing. I was observing and responding.

This quilt was basically evolving in real time. I was making blocks on the couch, adding them in to the layout, stepping back, noticing what I saw, and repeating that over and over again. It was (and still is) a slow process. And even though it might look like chaos… it’s not random!

A quilt design in process made of 9 9-patch blocks.

There are things happening in this piece with value, saturation, contrast and color relationships that I’m not trying to control! I’m just trying to notice them as I go and deciding what to do next.

AND IT FEELS FREEING!!

And this process is exactly what we’re going to be doing in Color Camp! Color Camp is not about giving you a perfect palette or telling you what colors go together.

It’s about helping you see what’s actually happening so you can make your own decisions, whether you are planning everything out or fully in “eff it, let’s see what happens” mode 😂.

We’re going to pair colors, break them, fix them, push them too far, pull them back, and figure out why something works or doesn’t for us. Because color is highly personal. It's not about what is right and wrong according to me. It's about working with it in a way that only you can work with it and developing your own color intuition.

And yes, if you’ve taken my 6-hour color class before, this is a full expansion. More exercises, more depth, more time to actually get deep into it. We will not only explore color interaction, but go deep into how to apply it to your quilts, and dive into palette building too!

Honestly, I think this is the best course I’ve ever made. It is truly what I want to share about how I see color, use it and open the doors to new pathways.

Color Camp starts June 1st and registration is open now.

Come make a beautiful, slightly wild, deeply intuitive color mess with me this summer! Explore the humble 9-patch with me! Once you sign up, there are already a slew of videos waiting for you to help you get ready for all the fun.