Purple is the color of the month in the 2018 Monthly Color Challenge hosted by Patterns by Jen. From what I hear from other quilters, it is a color that is loved or a color that is despised. I am a lover of purple... I think it "plays well with others".
You may have figured out that I am a music lover and as I pulled fabric for the block I had a song stuck... yep - an earworm. Follow the link below and join in the song!
Who remembers the Purple People Eater? You know... ♫♬♪the one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater! ♫♬♪ One-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater...Sure looks strange to me...♫♬♪
My Grandma had a pair of sunglasses, that we (my brother and cousins and I) referred to as her Purple People Eaters... I think they were yellow? (Of course, that was her favorite color) And I have no idea why we called them Purple People Eaters! Maybe because they looked strange? Who knows how our childish minds worked.
As state before, I am a lover of purple. It was one of my favorite colors as a child... I remember participating in a 4-H group and we were learning to knit. I was making a stocking cap as one of my projects. I chose purple and I wanted to have a contrasting brim and wanted red. My idea was shot down by my Mom and the knitting teacher. They told me the colors did not go together... they clashed. I had a white brim thanks to them!
And 30 years later the Red Hat groups popped up all over the place... ladies over 50 years of age were wearing purple shirts or dresses and RED hats. I was just ahead of the times... Had they actually let me use purple and red together I could have been a trendsetter!
The color purple also brings to mind my Dad... it was one of his favorite colors. It was after I had married and had our girls that he decided that it was ok for a man to wear purple. Mom made most of his western-style shirts (with snaps... NO buttons) so she used purple fabric to fulfill his request... she sometimes made a matching dress or shirt for herself.
Purple is also the color used for Alzheimer's Awareness. After Dad was moved to the nursing home because of his Alzheimer's our family participated in the Walk to Remember events to help raise funds for research. My mom and I made several quilts and donated them to the event in my Dad's honor...
The first one I called "Jumbled Memories". It seemed appropriate for the situation... the connections just weren't getting made for him to be able to get the words he wanted to say to come out of his mouth. It frustrated him... it made me sad. This quilt was placed on a silent auction at the event.
The next year the quilt below was the quilt that we donated... We called it Patchwork Memories. One friend described it like this...
Memory is like a quilt isn't it? It is kind of a patch work of of overlying events and emotions sewed together somehow in our minds. Memories are experiences, each uniquely remembered, yet always connected and shared by others, as a piece of cloth shares it's borders with other pieces of cloth on this quilt.
This quilt was given to the "honored" family at the event. Art was a gentleman that Dad had made a special connection with as a new resident in the secure unit. Art suffered from early on-set Alzheimer's and had recently passed away in his early 50's, and it was his family that received the quilt...
Sew... there you have it! I am a lover of purple. How about you?
Purple... Do you love it???
Or do you despise it???
Leave a comment and let me know. I love to hear what you think.
Quilt happy!
Melva
Come on now, everyone sing! ♫♬♪One-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater...♫♬♪
Melva Loves Scraps - home of the Quilters Through The Generations series
Linking with:
Color Challenge Link up at Patterns by Jen
BOMS away at What a Hoot Quilts
Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication
Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation
Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter
Color Challenge Link up at Patterns by Jen
BOMS away at What a Hoot Quilts
Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication
Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation
Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter
Purple is not one of my favorite colors. I prefer pastel shades of purple much better than dark shades of purple. I think I need to learn to like shades of purple. My son is living with a lovely lady whose favorite color is purple. Apparently everything in her house is a shade of purple. I couldn't think of any purples that I have in my stash so I've been adding purples to my stash so that I can make Jackie some sort of a quilt eventually. My four year old granddaughter who lives with them now says she likes purple as well as she likes pink. So with all that love of purple, I'd better learn to like it better. I'm not sure what Jackie's girls prefer in the way of colors. Actually, I prefer shades of purple much better than I do many, many shades of brown. I know we need a variety of colots and hues in our stash for different things. I like yellow and I have very, very little yellow in my stash - probably because I haven't found very many yellows that I like well enough to put in my stash. I love your story and your wanting to be a trendsetter fifty years early. It seems as if I always wanted a color for my Easter dress that was difficult to find and it would prevalent in a year or two. Again, thanks for the story.
ReplyDeleteI've loved the color purple, too. I made a bedspread and curtains out of purple and blue fabrics when I was a teenager. I remember buying my mom and dad a new bedspread and it was purple. Unfortunately, it was my favorite color and not theirs but they used it anyway for many years. I get earworms, too. Never this one...until now!
ReplyDeleteLove your purple block and the story behind your love of purple is from such great memories!
ReplyDeleteLove purple! I also love all shades of red--from pink to fuchsia, red to dark burgundy, and lilac to deep purple. Can't figure those that don't love it, but that's okay. I love all quilts!
ReplyDeleteDon't despise purple, but I don't go out of my way to wear it or create with it. Maybe because pink looks so much better with my fair skin and blonde hair. But your purple projects look awesome!!
ReplyDeleteThe walls of my bedroom are purple and I sleep under a purple ninja quilt. :-) I'm a fan! That said, sometimes I find it hard to find the right color(s) to pair with purple... since there's so much variety in shades of purple (from pinkish to blueish).
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