Daily Tip - Swatch this!

While wasting time on Pinterest, I happened across this pretty handy site - Design Seeds.  It is essentially an online palette book, which highlights different color combinations while showing the photographic inspiration for each collection of swatches.

Source: design-seeds.com via Natalie on Pinterest

In the never-ending world of home renovation, painting the walls is something we haven't actually gotten around to since moving in.  Yes, we're living in a world of rather boring off white right now - which I do plan on changing soon.  The palette to the left actually has the tones that I plan on using in our guest bathroom.  The paler green will be for the walls, the brown we will probably incorporate with coppery fixtures and framed artwork, the other colors shown in the counter tops and towels.

I love that I found this site for the obvious benefits with home decor, but it's also very inspiring from a crafter's perspective as well - whether making jewelry, quilting, knitting, or anything else with a strong design element and need for color.  I think that I can draw a lot of inspiration from the images that are presented, which I'm very excited about.  There are definitely some color combinations shown which I may not have come up with on my own.

There are literally hundreds of palettes on this website.  You can browse by theme (such as Spring, Nature, Vintage), or search by an individual color value, which then brings up corresponding themes.  I personally rather enjoy the "crafted" theme, which brings up all kinds of palettes inspired by crafty goodness...and will hopefully inspire some craftiness in return!  I highly recommend.

Daily Craft - Quilting: Where do I begin?

Before I begin my ramblings today, I would like to give a shout-out to my parents.  Last week, they celebrated their 32nd wedding anniversary (yay!) and yesterday it was my mom's birthday.  I figure it is well deserving of a mention!

As you may recall, I made this little patchwork blanket not too long ago.  It was delivered to the intended recipient this weekend and very well received by parents and child (despite the wonky, mismatched corners).  I'm also half way done with the simple quilt design I'm working on for my nephew.  I can confirm that I've got the quilting bug. 

Joann Fabrics has their Moonlight Madness sale going on right now - which is dangerous as far as I'm concerned.  Last night, I headed over there armed with a plethora of 50% off coupons to get myself a good bargain.  The challenge, of course, is that the coupons can't be used on sale items so I end up with the personal challenge of making sure I find something good that's not on sale to use them for.  Husband doesn't quite understand this logic, but I'm sticking to it!  Anyway, after arming myself with some awesome sale priced flannel for baby blankets, I then proceeded to search out non-sale fabrics for quilting purposes.  Seeing as I'm a total quilting novice, I ended up with 3 coordinating fat quarter bundles and figured that I can go from there. 

Now that I want to make something a little more complex in design, I'll readily admit that I am ridiculously overwhelmed as to where to begin with the quilting thing!  It's like a chicken and egg to me - do you decide on the quilting pattern then buy the fabric, or the other way around?  How much fabric are you supposed to buy if you don't know what you're going to do with it yet?  Having already purchased fabric intended to go together, how easy is it to modify an existing pattern to make those fabrics work?  The list of questions goes on and on!

Having spent some time at lunch today looking for quilt pattern ideas, I have found a couple ideas that I think will work, although doing all the math based on how many cuts for each fat quarter, and what other fabric supplies I need just might be doing my head in!  I also think that I want to make all of these designs by Jinny Beyer.  For now, I guess I'll keep doodling and calculating until I come up with something that makes sense.  If I get it right, I suspect it'll be pretty though!

So, any experts out there that have tips to share?

Daily Craft - Well how about that?!

I haven't designed any knitwear for a LONG time and I'm horribly ashamed of that fact.  I've got great ideas somewhere jumbled up in my head.  My problem is getting the time to put them down on paper, knit up swatches, gather test knitters etc.  Recently I've been really getting the itch to get back on the designing band-wagon, so to speak.  I also know that I'm a pro when it comes to the best of intentions going unfulfilled though!

Anyway, to give myself a little inspiration, I decided to check on Ravelry to see how my other designs have been doing.  I was thrilled to see that other people have actually made these things!  Even more exciting is that people have given my patterns very decent ratings and seem to be liking them.  There's actually people out there in the world that are making my designs.  It's so much fun for me to look through the photos of their projects and see what they thought of the pattern, check out their yarn and color choices, etc. 

Harpa Socks
Knit up by 23 Ravelry members so far!

Roman Holiday Mitts
Knit up by 43 Ravelry members so far!

I also get really excited when I think about the fact that there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of non-Ravelry members out there who have pulled these patterns from my old blog, linked through from knittingpatterncentral.com, or other sites where these free patterns ended up.  It's hilarious to imagine that there's tons of mystery people wandering the streets with fingerless mitts of my design keeping their hands warm, but alas I'll never know for sure.  ;)