Saturday, April 30, 2016

April Circles for Quilty 365

It reigned purple in my sewing room in April.  That was the plan and color I'd chosen for the month for my Quilty 365 circle project.

Three weeks in, there was the sad news of Prince's departure from this world.  His music was part of the soundtrack of my life.  "Raspberry Beret" and "Let's Go Crazy" were among my favorites, but there were so many more.  His talent, vision, musicianship, creative genius, and supreme funkiness will be sorely missed.   
"If you don't like
the world you're livin' in
Take a look around
at least you got friends..."

Back to the circles, it took some creativity to come up with 30 purple dots.  Purple is one of those colors I don't tend to have a lot of in the stash, but since I'm a saver of scraps and strings, I managed to scrounge up enough to cobble together.


Back in the '90s, I decided to paint a bathroom a lovely shade of lilac.  Afterwards, when shopping for towels and rugs, I found out how hard it was to match purple.  Too gray, too bright, too blue, too dark, too grapey.  I finally went with tan/cream accessories.


Which happens to be my background square color scheme, so we're good.  Perhaps the point of purple is to defy the whole matching thing.  Mess with attempts to pin it down.  Just when you think it's this, it's that.  I admire that rebel quality.


So we have grayish purples, muddy purples, happy purples, sad purples, grapey, spring-fresh, and quirky purples.  And so on.

Another fun factoid about my experience with purple.  Once in a while, I'll get a whiff of something—a flower, a piece of candy—and I'll say, "It smells like purple."  I didn't know this was kind of weird until my husband commented that he didn't understand what I was talking about.  What does purple smell like?  Well, not like grape, as one might imagine.  More like a certain clover, which is also the same (in my mind) as what purple gumdrops tasted like in my childhood.  Later in life, I found out this may be a form of synesthesia.  I do have number form synesthesia, when it comes to visualizing calendars and timelines, but there are other types as well.  

I don't smell other colors, as a rule.  I think it'd be really cool, though, if I did.  In a fabric store, would the smells all blend together?  If so, would it smell like brown?  And as I'm thinking about what brown would smell like, I'm remembering the modeling clay from my childhood.  I spent a lot of time with my nose within a few inches of modeling clay as a kid.  Not Play-Doh; for some reason, I just wanted to eat that stuff.  Modeling clay came in sticks wrapped in cellophane.  There were a few basic colors in a pack, but after a while, they all got mixed together forming a big hunk of brown.


But enough about my childhood eccentricities.  Who knows, maybe my brain got rewired when as a tot I stuck the silver butter knife in the electrical socket and woke up several feet away seeing stars.  And I do remember those purple stars!

With January's blue circles, February's red/pink, March's green, and April's purple, that brings me to a total of 121.

Linking to:  Quilty Folk

10 comments:

Quilting Babcia said...

Who knew, something else to research - I hear music in color - maybe that's akin to your experience with color smells? Anyway, your purple circles are delightful.

Lara B. said...

That's so interesting about how you smell the color purple Paulette. I would have imagined that it smelled like grape koolaid. LOL - it probably it a good thing you don't smell every color. You might not have become a quilter if you couldn't go into a fabric shop because of sensory overload.

I was just thinking about it and realized that I taste the color orange. It tastes like orange juice and sunshine, predictably.

Yikes on the childhood electrical accident!

The purple circles are lovely! 121 is quite an accomplishment! What color is next?

Robby said...

I'm loving your purple circles, a good creative tribute to Prince even if it didn't start that way.

My mother sometimes says, "Oh, that's red flavored." She insisted that about most red candy or drinks. That it is a not entirely natural flavor so it doesn't taste like anything else she can describe except 'red'. So why can't something smell purple?

Marly said...

Lovely purple circles, and I agree beige and tan are the ideal partner colours. I love wearing purple, but ALL purple is just too much!

Anonymous said...

Fascinating post and your circles are truly beautiful!

Sandi said...

It's interesting the sad coincidence of your choice of purple for April and Prince's passing. You won't forget that connection I'm sure.

I'm doing mine in a more random methods bit constant that I'm doing black and white backgrounds, alternating light and darks.

Gisele said...

Great purple circles & an interesting post to read. What colour have you chosen for May?

audrey said...

So interesting that purple has a smell for you! Great circles this month.:)

Kaja said...

I wish I could smell colours! I love your purples, and how appropriate they turned out to be.

Marei said...

I've not been on the computer in over a week so am just seeing this post. I totally agree with you that purple is hard to match or play with. So many people LOVE purple but it occupies hardly any real estate in my quilt cave. I'm just not that kind of a girl.
Again I see we are truly kindred spirits....I stuck a bobby pin into an electrical socket when I was a kid living in the Philippines. My Mom told me the only reason I survived was because I was laying on the bed and didn't "make a complete circuit".
Hm...I think I've been avoiding making complete circuits (of ANYTHING) ever since!