Last week was remarkable for the amount of time I didn’t spend in my sewing room. The week was completely taken up with appointments, errands, holiday shopping and decorating,a couple ofparties, and –it must be admitted –way too manyScrabble games.

At least I got the blocks put together formy Season to Taste table runner:

I’m making a version of Season to Tastefor each of the four seasons. This one is the summer version,and I’m going to call itSun Flowers. Thepale gray background fabric (from the Painter’s Canvas line by Laura Gunn for Michael Miller) reminds me of asummer sky at first light.

The kaleidoscope blocks went together very easily but I amunhappy that the centers of themiddle and bottom blocks don’tmatchexactly. It appears acouple of the repeats were just a smidge off when I cut through the eight layers of my focus fabric. With a kaleido block, being offeven a sixteenth of an inch can make adifference.

Since Sun Flowersis destinedto be a wall hanging, I’m going to place a vintage yellow button in the center of each kaleidoscope block.I auditioned a fewbuttons in my collection:

I’m going topretend that adding the buttons was adesign choice rather than a ployto cover my cutting error.You won’t tell anyone, will you?

Last weekIwrapped up Part 2 of a kaleidoscope table runner class at the Pine Needle Quilt Shop.The class sprang fromtwo table runners I hadmade earlier this year –same design but totally different outcomes because of the fabric choices. I wrote about them in this post in March.

Bothrunners appear on the cover of my latest pattern,Season to Taste:

That’s Autumn Reflections on the left and a springtimeversion,Under Paris Skies, on the right.I’m thinking about making a summer and winter version, which will give me a quartet of seasonal table runners made from the same pattern, eachvery different from one another.

My summer version may already be in the works. For the kaleido block I was demonstrating in class, I usedthis floral fabric from the Gray Matters collectionby Jacqueline Savage Mcfee for Camelot Cottons:

Yes, there’s a lot of gray in this piece of fabricbut it’soffset by a sunny yellow and bright gold. The white brightens it up even more. I bought a piece of the floral last year and was so excited when it was reissued this year along with some fabulous companion fabrics. Between the Pine Needle and Hawthorne Threads, I picked up several pieces in the line that willdefinitely find their way into another quilt.

Are you curious to see what this print looks like as a kaleido block? Well, here ’tis:

That’s French for “Under Paris Skies.” It’sthe name of a song I betyou’drecognizeif I hummed a few bars. It’s alsothe name of my newly finishedlittle quilt:

Under Paris Skies measures about 18″ x 55″. I used eight different fabrics in theoctagons, five of them fussy-cut. No matter which way you turn thequilt, you see vignettes of Parisians young and oldenjoying a spring day in the City of Light.There’s an Eiffel Tower in each block, too.

The quilt below, which I finished a few weeks ago,is the same size and design but has a completely different look,more like a realkaleidoscope viewed through a tubemade of bits of colored glass or paper. When the tube is rotated, the reflections produce changing patterns that are visible through an eyehole.

This quilt is namedAutumn Reflections. The focus fabric, from the Autumn Harvest line by Jason Yenter for In the Beginning Fabrics, has pumpkins on it, big leaves, andgrapes or berries.You’d never know it from looking at the finished blocks,though. Interesting howcutting up the focus fabric into 45 degree wedges completely changes what you see.

I’m going to be teaching a class in June on this design.Students can make their quilt witheight repeats of fabric, as in the autumn version,or eight different fabrics, as in the spring version. Vive le différence!

The photos in yesterday’s post didn’t do justice to Gay Paree, the new Michael Miller fabric I just used in a kaleidoscope table runner. Gay Paree is a novelty fabric featuring slightly abstractscenes of Paris. There’s a young couple sitting at an outdoor café, a little girl buying flowers from a street vendor, another vendor selling baguettes, and a nunfeeding birds. There’s also a smartly dressedwoman walking her dogs — poodles, of course –near the Eiffel Tower and a sailor kissing his sweetheart by a fountain. A whimsicalpanorama indeed:

I fussy-cut six different images from the fabric and inserted them randomly, two to a block, in my table runner:

You may be wondering what this Gay Paree fabric has to do with Pantone. Do you know about Pantone? It’san Americancorporation best known for its standardized color reproduction system, known as PMS (Pantone Matching System).The system is used in a variety of industries where accurate color reproduction is really important — printing, of course, but also in the manufacture of paint and fabrics.

Every year Pantone declares a “Color of the Year,”which guidesconsumer-oriented companies — think florists, fashion designers, fabric manufacturers — in product design and future planning. I happened to be in a paint store the other day and stopped in front of aPantone display, which featured the three most recent Colors of the Year.The 2012 Pantone Color of the Year — Tangerine Tango — was the very shade of orange-y red in my Gay Paree fabric!Take a look:

It just so happens that Gay Paree comes in two other colorways: a brightemerald green and a vibrant orchid:

And it also just so happens thatPantone’s Color of the Year for 2013 isEmerald and 2014’s color is Radiant Orchid:

Coincidence? I think not! Savvy marketing? Mais oui!