Terrie,
Jinny Beyer shared how she does this on her website. Go to jinnybeyer.com and select the Tips and Techniques tab. Scroll down to "Computers and Color."
She also provided a link to a color palette generator, www.cssdrive.com/imagepalette/

Looks like fun. I will have to try this.

Judith

Hi Terrie! I did a search of palette generators last night but there were so many of them out there but remembered a conversation here on the Forum about it a couple of years ago so I did a Forum search and found that Michelle found a palette generator that was nice because it associated colors with Kona cotton color names. You can find it at www.play-crafts.com/blog/palettebuilder2/. I played with it a few minutes ago and it was fun. Hope this helps.

As for the nine patch blocks. I agree with you about doing small strips. The issue for those of us doing the mini was how to best handle 1" squares under the machine and still get the accuracy needed for a 1 1/2" nine-patch block.

Renata - it looks really good. Can anyone point me in the direction of the 'palette generator" Is it something on the 'net, or something to buy? Sounds good.

I'm still hymming and hawing over my colours and determined to stick to my stash, so that's where I am, but it's getting narrowed down. Leaving a few swatches up on the design wall over night really helps.

As for the nine patches - this may be a dumb idea, but if you have five 9-patches in a row, you would have 5 x 3 =15 patches in a row, and then 3 -patches high. Therefore, could we simply make a small strip of 15 squares, chosen randomly , three times, and then sew these strips together. ( I would alternate the direction of each square sewn.) Does this makes sense, or would it work?? ( I'm talking about full sized.) Is this dumb or the lazy way?

I am making mine full size (I think it is already going to be challenging making those 9 patch blocks so small and am tempted to consider another block in their place). I am using a barn instead of a house and am working on that right now. Also, mine will be scraopy - something that is usually out of my comfort zone, but this lends itself to it. Also, I am using raw edge applique on this center section. I will probably do needle turn when we get to the floral borders. It will be a few days before I am ready to post pictures.

I tho't it looked like "French General"....they are so pretty !

Thank you all for validating my color choices--I'm really happy with them and have not had a desire to tinker further but I do like Rosemary's idea of running the colors through a color palette generator and see what it brings up. Marilyn, the jelly roll is at least two years old, but it is called Esprit de Noel by Moda. It's from the so-called French General line of fabris that Moda produces. I purchased it a couple of years ago because I liked the colors, then it sat there because I wasn't sure I knew what I would do with it. Now I have the perfect fabric in my stash for this project. Sherry, are you going to make the half-size or full-size version of this quilt? Charae, I almost ordered the kit myself so that I would not have to ruminate over fabric choices, but then I knew I wanted to make a Christmas wall-hanging and the kit would not have worked.

Gorgeous colors, Renata! I am still contemplating what method I will use for these blocks.

Ingenious problem solving, Renata!! Also, I love your color pallete! I bought the kit; probably will never do that again. I am having a bear of a time trying to figure out what colors are suppose to be what! It would have probably been easier to pull from my stash, but then again I sometimes forget how color challenged I am. At least I have finally moved beyond using "primary colors" exclusively! HA!

Renata...good shot, good block...what Jelly Roll is that...Share, Please?

Great picture Renata, You should put it into one of those colour picker 'thingy-ma-bobs' that would give you the colour range - you might find a few extra colours that way that you hadn't realised were in the picture and may help round out your choices.

Okay, I just tried making the miniature nine-patch using the instructions from the video I posted this morning. I did it on tracing paper because my fusible wash away applique' paper has not yet arrived. That said, it was super-easy to assemble and sew, I would definitely use a wash-away base because the block is too small to try and get tracing paper out of it after sewing the seams. The block measured a perfect 2" square (1 1/2" plus 1/2" for seam allowance).



I laid a sheet of graph and layout paper over which I put the tracing paper. Then I drew out a nine-patch block using the squares from the graph paper in the background. The size of each square was 1" because my final square was going to be 1/2". I glued the squares onto the paper with Elmer's school glue stick and followed the sewing directions in the video. What I don't know is how it would turn out with the wash-away fusible, but so far, so good.

On an aside, I mentioned in a previous post on the 2015 BOM Group that it took me a long time to figure out the colors and fabrics for my BOM. Then yesterday it all came to me--I took a picture of the fabric combination and put it into my quilt journal. This morning it snowed here in the DC area and I took a photo in the neighborhood. The colors in the photo were just like my quilt color selection! So I took it as an omen that, after so much hand-wringing, my color choices for the 2015 BOM were good! Or at least that is how I'm rationalizing staying on track from here on out!

It is also the method that Paula Doyle advocates for tiny pieces - I remember her showing Ricky on one of the shows onetime. But Paula had a paper layout that you put under the fusible and the width of the printed lines allowed for the thickness of the fabric when it was folded for stitching.

That's brilliant Renata - great find! It also reminded me that there is the show with Terrie Sandelin on miniatures where she does something like this too (it's in the 5 series somewhere I think). I am going to try a sample 9-patch with the 'Common Sense' method now and see if it works for me. Thanks for the link.

By golly, I think I found another way to do the nine patch with a bunch of different random colors, but will have to try and see whether it works with such small pieces--I'm thinking we could use the washaway applique paper or any fusible washaway stabilizer, or even Golden Threads paper and then just pull it out. If using paper, I would shorten my stitch from 2.0 to 1.8 or shorter.

Here is the video with how to do it:

I'm thinking two things. First, if it works, instead of making the nine-patch blocks, you could do the entire border at once. Secondly, later on you could make the mini-piano key border that way too. Any thoughts on this?