Sewing Saturday from blocks to birds to abstract

 

see the sun peeking out at top right?

This is Saturday's weekly sewing round-up for the week, welcome!

I have been obsessed with the tumbling blocks. I found this project after I'd done about half the blocks that you see here

it was an english paper piecing project I could do in front of the tv, in colors of the month at RSC. I added in some red blocks for this month and thought I have quite a few, what would they look like laid out? Since I couldn't place them on the vertical design wall (paper makes 'em slippery) I pulled out my portable design board and started to organize them.

As you can imagine, I've been moving them around all week, and when a section seemed right to put together, I pinned them to each other so they could be done in front of the tv. That's why you see small sections missing now and then.

what did I learn? 

group colors for focus else it will look like confetti

colors will blend, like the cool section that is really made of green, turquoise, blues and purple

I automatically set the size because of the size of my design board. 

that is big, y'all. I limited myself to this size, then wondered where to put the few excess blocks. Now understand I never had a size in mind, nor how many blocks I'd need, so why do I feel the need to use all the blocks? 

Should I ignore the size of the design space when laying out a design?  

So this may actually gain another row going up and down on the left. 

Anyway it has kept me busy and off the streets this week. 

This is the finished bird spring piece I finished last week, hanging in the family room! That means it has a sleeve sewn on the back too!

I am photo impaired for some reason this week... something about the changing light here lately

but this pic shows how I add branches then sew them in with texturing threads, how I painted the birds right onto a finished top of watercolor squares that finish at 1.5", and some quilting.

This shows two birds, and the binding choice I made to use my precious Caryl Bryer Fallert hand dye print on top and bottom, and my precious no long made pointillist gradation fabric on the sides.

leaves and sun rays quilted in add texture

what I learned...

first there are all the decisions about placement of squares, then piecing them in order

then where to paint the birds, and what colors to use on them (I used gelato sticks to paint with)

next the border decisions, then quilting decisions including thread, then binding... I learned to use my good fabrics even on small binding strips because small details matter.

such as the hand embroidery added to the trunk, years ago when this was started. Those tiny white flowers and thin green vines are not the first thing you see but I know they are there. 

You can see a bit of how the tiny squares come together to give a spring flower garden feel. 

I learned that some projects need resting time, and come out better than if you pushed to finish them all at once.

The color of the month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is red, and I like red in all it's variations. Last week I showed you a red scrap project started a year ago

and how I added to it with strips of tiny triangles sewn into flying geese. I am making a video of that for later... stay tuned. Anyway... I wanted to keep this in the red zone even though I like it on gray for the joining section area... it's a decision. 

I learned you just have to make a choice and move on, it can always be done many ways but it I let myself dither too long it will go back in the UFO pile. 

so I got busy and inserted that pinkish red fabric to join the sections...

see on the bottom of this picture. Then I just needed that precious hoarded striped fabric to go in it somewhere, so free form curves were used to stitch it on too. 

The pics do not do it justice, but trust me it's really pretty in person and the geese stand out.

as one does, I auditioned many fabrics, and decided this is a good layout, with the vintage hoffman red with wild metallic circles for the outside strips... then....

I wondered if it needed an accent of DARK red before that strip, or maybe an accent...

maybe not this shade of purple but a jolt of purple might make all the reds stand up and pay attention!

so it's all excitement and color in studio 1 this week. I have not neglected my watercolors just used my coloring calendar to play with blended colors this week. I realized I often put every color in!!

which led me to pull out my inktense pencils and color on fabric again. Once you dab on water and heat press it fades, boo!!! But this will become something betcha! Maybe a small machine side pin cushion to give away.

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