Bonus! Ticker Tape Parade - Advance Partial Clue #8AP

Happy New Years!  Given that a lot of you may have New Year's Day off, I figured I would give Blog followers a jump start on Clue #8.  

In this "advance" clue, I'm only sharing a partial piece of Clue #8, but it will give you a jump start on Friday's complete Clue #8.   I'm calling it Clue #8AP.

First, I want to talk a bit about Grand Central Mystery Quilt Series, that is starting in just over 2 weeks, January 17th.  

Grand Central

In the Grand Central Facebook Group there have been a couple questions on Background.  So, I wanted to take a few moments and talk about Background.    

For the Background:

• Pick something complementary with your Fabric, however it should have a high contrast to the fabrics you selected.  
• I plan to use White, but you should use what works best for your fabric.  

I choose white, vs ivory or cream, based on the selvage of my Border fabric (the starting point for this whole quilt).  Often you will find that the selvage is white, ivory or cream.   I typically use this as a reference when picking my Background.  However, I have seen instances where the Border's selvage is white, but cream is used in the Fabric and not white.  So, be careful.  The Border Fabric's colors are going to be your best guide.  If you are looking to use a light color, use the white, cream or ivory that is used in the Border Fabric or your in the main fabrics in the quilt.

Border Fabric has White in it, so that is my Background

My other "go-to" Background colors, other than ivory or cream, would have been the following,and I've noted why they wouldn't work for this quilt:

• Black - With the Dark Blue, too close in color,. One it would clash and two, it doesn't have enough contrast with my Assorted Brights
• Gray - Not enough contrast with my Assorted Brights
• Light Blue- Not enough contrast with my Assorted Brights
• Light Pink- Not enough contrast with my Accents

Hopefully, this helps you in making your selection. 

Most important - It is that your Background have a high contrast with all of your fabrics.

By the way, I've updated the Grand Central Overview with this information and it can be found at: Sewonthego website

Color Lesson - Picking your accompanying fabric

Before we move on to Ticker Tape Parade, I want to talk through another example for fabric selection. 

Let's take a look at Lois's fabric:

• Below is her Border Fabric with her 3-in-1 Color Tool.

• She has a Dual-Split Complementary Plan -Which is great.

Close up of Lois Fabric

However, the dual Split Complementary color plans are close in color, so she is going to have to be careful in her color placement, especially in selecting her Accents.  Note, she pulled the color tabs from her 3-in-1 Color Tool and I've circled them on the Color Companion.  

• The 3-in-1 and Color Companion tools are the best way to evaluate your color plan.  I think a lot of you have taken to the Abode tool, which works to find the colors, but is not the best way to evaluate your color plan. 

Lois's Border Fabric Color Plan

• Here Accents are going to be Yellow (1)/Chartreuse (2)  and Fuchsia (16)/Magenta (17).  
• Normally, I would say she should pick her assorted brights from Aqua Blue (8) through Violet (13), however, given that we want at least 5 tabs between the Assorted Bright and the Accents, my suggestion is that Lois keeps her Assorted Brights to Aqua Blue (8) through:
•  Blue-Violet (12) if she goes with Magenta (17) as her Accent
• Blue (11) if she goes with Fuchsia (16) as her Accent

I think should could even go over one more tab to Blue-Red (18) and take her Assorted Brights to Violet (13).  Most important is that her Accents are both 5 Color tabs over from the Assorted Brights, and each other.  Of course, go with the fabric.  Hope that makes sense.   

I will cover another example on Friday.

Ticker Tape Parade 

Today, we will be making more BLOCKS!  If needed, you can use the Studio 180's Tucker Trimmer I to trim/square-up your Ticker Tape Blocks.   Remember Clue #8AP the Download is only available through Thursday, Jan 9th, and details are in the Download 

A few tips:

• You are going to pull out those little Squares you been collecting through the Clues.  You will need to cut a few more from the remaining Strips to get you to the number needed.
• I choose to sort my Squares into piles, by color, to determine what I had.  I discovered, that I had 25 Purple toned Squares.  Different fabric, but from a distance they are going to read the same.  So, given the number of Blocks, I'm going to want to make sure I end up with one in each block, to ensure that I don't end up with 2 in the same block.  This is just my crazy "over-planning" but it makes me happy.

• Therefore, I'm going to put all of the Purple colored Squares in one  stack and match them up with different color fabric.  I also think the Black is going to pop, so I want to be careful with those too.  So, I stacked my Purple and Black in one stack, plus a few more to get me to the halfway mark.   Everything else went in the other stack. 

• Once I sewed my Squares and Rectangles into Bars, I was careful with placing them onto the Wedge Star Rectangles.  
• My only rule was not to have the same fabric touching.  
• I tried where possible to stay away from the same color being next to each other, but I had to make concessions.

• These come together easily, as the seams nest.  Be careful to following my pressing instructions to ensure things come together in the upcoming step. 

That is it for today.  

I wanted to take this time to thank you very much for all the support this year.  I greatly appreciate it and enjoy my time spent with all off you!

Have a happy and safe New Years!

Keep Stitching,

Michelle