New Orleans House Project

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Scrappy Saturday: Playing with Gray, Ignoring the Weather

This month's color instructions for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge are to use gray to black scraps.  Since I only have a few gray fabrics in my stash (Oh No!  I had to make scraps for this week's block!), I decided to start there and challenge myself to make an interesting gray happy scrappy house block.

I expected my world would be full of gray today.  The weather pundits have been telling us to prepare for TS Karen for the past 48 hours, but my gut feeling was always that she would turn out to be a lot of nothing.  So, at noon on Saturday, the sun is shining and Karen is falling apart.  Still, I plan on staying home and sewing for as much of the day as possible!

After playing with the gray scraps for a bit, I realized a little pop of color was needed to perk things up.  Moda Grunge fabric to the rescue - a little bit of pink was just the ticket!  I also noticed photographing the gray blocks at an angle helped show off the color and fabrics better.  

I used up a few more scraps making leader-ender spool blocks.

I love the gray background in this Halloween wallhanging.  This goes back to my early days of quilting; the pattern may be from Better Homes and Gardens, but the memory is dim.  The instructions never called for any quilting, and the quilt is finished by sewing the backing and batting to the quilt top with wrong sides together, then turning right side out.  The pieced top has  always sagged a bit, and I keep telling myself to add some quilting to stabilize things.  I think that project will be another gray challenge for this month.

This week's New Orleans House Project subject is known as the Brown-Villere Mansion, a Romanesque Revival standout on St. Charles Avenue.  Even though the house is sort of a taupe-y gray, I wanted to share it because it's such a New Orleans landmark.  Plus, unlike all the houses I've shared so far, you can actually see some of the interior of this house!

Please stop by Angela's soscrappy blog to see how the color gray has inspired other Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilters!