Saturday, August 28, 2021

sewing saturday scraps, and table scraps


47 half square triangle blocks!! The coaster is 6.5" square

 It is small but it goes on a table, it's a coaster. I made it from the cut away triangles after making the bats and boos block, so when the tiny sparkly triangles are sewn they make a 1.25" square block to use.

tried lots of concepts with them...

 this is my table scraps offering this month... two finished coasters and two runners for fall in progress

I used a turquoise scrap as accent. Turquoise/teal/aqua is the color of the month at rainbow Scrap Challenge, and I worked on two other turquoise scrap projects this week. First another in the goddess series

but I wasn't sure whether to add in this lovely batik for borders, to be sewn with freeform curvy edges. To me it's artistic, the colors leading you to more distinct piecework inn the center. A friend suggested I insert a coral strip, maybe... 

I sewed some narrow strips together to create a pot. I have a wildflower pot on the porch, and drew a pic of it in my calendar. That inspired me to make a banner quilt...

where I think it's headed, but longer... 

the week started with these three, and one by one they grew...

you saw the goddess with border fabric. This is the one on the bottom right with chosen borders.

It was smaller til I added in the sunflowers on the left and the red fossil fern leaves on the right... satisfied with that I then found the batik to put around it to make it into a good sized table runner for fall.





as for the little abstract on the top... I couldn't decide what to do with it... til... I thought how about a row by row style??





I have chosen these fabrics so now I just have to pick sizes and sew it. I see it on one of our pillars to decorate for fall... 

I finally chose border fabrics for my bats and boos, and for the kaleidoscope. 

Always something fun to do in the studio that is small but mighty!

linking with 

design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts
lovelaughquilt.mondays

patchwork Sunday                    
oh Scrap Sundays 

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/ 


Friday, August 27, 2021

paint party Friday... the past two weeks

 


Ahhhhh paint party Friday is here! A time when creatives share what they've been making all week

this was from last week's workshop with Elizabeth Foley, did I show you? The workshop was a mix of art and finding your mojo to create. I like to write, to put words together so I combined those two loves in this piece. 

Both the Foley workshop and the Kelly Blaser workshop included some meditation before each session. I have "monkey brain" jumping from thought to thought so it was a learning experience to take so much time to just quiet down. 

 I painted this face in 5 minutes too, on a 3" scrap of paper

Some things I learned over the course of two weeks...

sometimes it's okay to spend just 5 minutes to paint/draw/sew/ make something from your heart


I like combining words and drawings in my sketchbook. 

Even in the writing workshop that also taught some Buddhist principles and helped us to explore what we need to live a full life,  I found myself adding paintings to margins as I thought.

I sew art quilts, I bead, I play music, I write, I paint and draw

I am not one thing, I am like most people, complex

as Michaelangelo said, I am always learning

 

 

 

even if only coloring in my calendar (basford) I learn about shading and paint mixing

so when I became aware of Rachel at workshop muse giving a 4 part art principle/meditation free workshop, I took it. The first one was a discussion of just color. She said make blobs on your paper in cool colors, just seeing the color on paper...
 
this is what I made
this is what she showed us after we painted

OH! I guess this is why we don't see what she means first as it might limit us!

I thought blue is cool so I smeared blue on in an arc. I love seeing watercolor move across paper! Then thought gray is cool, and added some gray under it. I love color so I added green, daubing the brush up and down to put color over the blue, and it mixed, and blurred and blended as it was all wet. 

Again she never said let it touch in fact it was much later when she said now try it touching.

dh came out of his office and said, it's the adirondacks! We used to go every year at this time.
 

I mixed up this palette, aware of how much water I put in so that the colors would be more transparent. I've been playing with transparency lately and how subtle colors are beautiful too. I started with the orange ochre color across the paper (torn sheet of 140 lb canson paper) and then just added in cool color, warm color, cool, then warm and I like it  lot. 

when I saw her non touching strips of color I went to a new sheet and painted these lovelies in the same color palette.  I wanted to see how they overlapped, how they were diluted vs more pigment, how adding a line of darker or contrasting color blended. At the end, when I should have backed away from a pretty painting, I added silver gel pen (signo) for stem accent, and she asked us to add words. 

At the end of the session I had a tryptich.  I had used the same palette of color so they all look good together and remind me of the mountains back east, the fresh pine scent and green trees, yellow birch, blue skies. 

She went over the concept of line... asking us to ignore color, shape, space and focus on what lines we could see...

I never have white page syndrome. I LOVE a clean fresh sketchbook page! Finding this more difficult than I suspected, I tried to paint the lines I saw ahead of me, with a paintbrush only. 

family room
more lines...

another person might have used only black pen, or chosen a different style, so I put my take on practice for a word I'm going to put on the next paintings, with tombow brush markers in color of course.

When she did the video on shape

we started with a meditation that included deep breathing. She asked us to visualize the shape the air took inside our body, and once again I imagine every person viewing had a different vision. Mine was sort of round, sort of oval with indistinct edges... so I began in the sketchbook with dilute pigment and my watercolor brush. 

I keep the sketchbook and watercolor set by the computer, so there is little prep when I take time to paint for learning

I just painted which felt nice. I added new circles, sometimes overlapping, sometimes repeating colors. I noted the movement on thin drawing paper vs thick watercolor paper, I did not like the harsh line of tombow here, but quite liked doing pale circles then saturated color on top. I liked seeing the overlap even on thin paper where it dries instantly. Then I wanted to try it on torn 140 lb paper, bent to become cards for friends... 

This one is very satisfying to me... I like the placement... is it seaglass? I like the bleeding lines from color to color since I tilted it as it dried, I like the blending. 

then I went on to do this... didn't like it as much and had a hard time knowing why. Maybe too many circles? Too dark? so I added in posca pen in white for highlights and dragged a tombow marker along the sides to accent the bruised paper tear. I think with "breathe" across the painting it will be a fine card. 

Every art project, learning or just creations, take so many decisions. Some spontaneous like how to mix the color or what kind of bleeding you want. Some more thoughtful like which word to use or the font or placement of it. 

Art is my passion, whether I'm using fabric or paint, have a lot of time or a little, whether it is shared here or stored away with a date on it for my eyes only. 

I have been working on a project in studio, translating one of my paintings into fabric art, more on that tomorrow. Until then, happy creations!


Linking to:
https://paintpartyfriday.blogspot.com/

Thursday, August 26, 2021

I Like Thursday #259

 

some colors I used this week while painting!
welcome to this week's short list of likes. I LOVE painting with watercolors!

 I liked talking to my friend Cindy this week.  It's like being together almost when we talk. We share so much and she makes my heart lighter. 

This week I also talked to Diane in TX and Joy in NC... these three calls made my week much happier.

I am now finished with my creativity and writing/meditation workshops. I learned from each. 

I found this person' who is sharing 4 art/meditation workshops, on color, line, shape and space, four principles of art. Go see: https://www.workshopmuse.com/make-meditate

In the first session on color I painted, accidentally three small works that I liked. It's magic when you release yourself from judgement and just make art...  

 I thought I was painting blobs of cool colors and dh came out and said, "Awe... the Adirondacks !!! This is the time we would normally be in Lake Placid. 

I'll do a special painting post tomorrow with some of what I learned during the last week. All the lessons translate to my quilt art and other art forms

My wildflowers are gorgeous but the vegetables all gave up the ghost it's been so hot...


 

I am still reading These Tangled Vines luckily because Amazon prime gave me the book free I am not rushing to finish like library books. 

On audio I listened to another in series of kilts and quilts the best one yet and ordered the next book to listen to when I am finished with #2 of the hatshop Jenn Mackinley book

I watched a forgettable movie last weekend... but on TV am enjoying Bachelor in Paradise which is so much fun to watch, saw the surfing show after but not into surfing or surfers. I am enjoying also some of 90 day fiance, America's got talent, The Hustler, some archeology shows including one on PBS  "Native America"

Amazon.com: Native America DVD : n/a, Scott Tiffany, Gary Glassman: Movies  & TV

I have been busy sewing which I'll share on Saturday's post, here is a snip of a painting I am translating into fabric 


 

Milo here, ( it's been in the 90's and sunny with poor air quality) takin' it easy this week. I did manage to eat some of Mama's French toast this week which made for a poodlicious change from that styrofoam I usually get. 

Mama: MILO! your kibble has meat and vege and vitamins...

Milo: It doesn't have Vit D... deliciousness. And no maple syrple. I'll just have some of your food

Mama: hmph, many times I try to give you something from my plate and you back away

Milo: well some of that stuff is green!!! 

Mama: so is the grass in the yard but you chew that!

Milo: well then, you didn't tell me you had grass on your plate, pass it over!

please visit these fine people with lists of likes too! The parties I link up to all have people with positive things to share too.

 grammajudyb.blogspot.com

 

https://scrapatches.blogspot.com/    

https://100sweets.blogspot.com/

https://faithtrustandbreastcancer.blogspot.com/ 

 http://www.piecefulthoughts.com

 

LINKING WITH

http://goodrandomfun.blogspot.com

rosie and the boys nature pics 

friday smiles at a stitch in time 

Sunday, August 22, 2021

spirit Sunday

 I loved this but am crying as it touched my senses so much... enjoy

what does it make you feel? Do you have enough affection in this life? Maybe we should accept love and affection when it is offered...


Saturday, August 21, 2021

Sewing Saturday

 

this week in sewing... lots of sewing going on this week amid finishing the creativity course, and the writing/meditation course. 

 

Let's start with the rainbow scrap challenge color of the month, teal/turquoise/aqua. I made two more large hexi/kaleidoscope blocks.

I have finally this many months in corrected the original instructions I saw on a tv show. 

When you are dealing with angles that must come back together just right, even a 1/16th of an inch can make a difference. 

The teacher said to take two 5" squares, face to face, mark one and 3/16" in from top right, 1 3/16" in from bottom left and cut a diagonal line... well my blocks did not lay flat when sewn. 

When I changed to 1 1/8" they did






I chose not to do circles but hexagon centers

working in this broad color way was interesting too. I have a box of this kind of color but at it's heart it is in the blue family. Or the green family... or not either. 

This week I started adding borders to my Ricky Tims kaleidoscope center, but will show that top when they are done. 

There were times this week when I wanted to just sew. Not a masterpiece, just sew seeing color next to color, seeing lines emerge, seeing something finished. I went into the studio and tried to figure out how to finish all the scrap projects from that quilt. I couldn't decide, nothing looked right, then one day I went in and it was easy. I chose borders, finished some, and others just went together perfectly.

In my meditation/writing lessons this week we talked about the value of waiting... just letting things be until time to deal with them. 

This is not procrastination or dithering but waiting for the moment of readiness. 

Some of the tiny scrap things from making that have been on the wall, and this one turned into a coaster

as you can see it's small but it still has parts I liked. The angles repeating on the diagonal, the color splash of that orange, the tree fabric on the corners, that wonderfully vibrant star fabric repeating in the center carried out to the border. 

This is just a coaster but those principles would hold when making a bed quilt

I finished all the blocks for my bats and boos, I made a table scraps project to share next week at Joy's link party, and spent an amount of time designing that miniature.

At the moment I am banking back and forth between the fall projects and the RSC turquoise work. 

It's all good

and remember:

vaccines keep you alive (if anything will) but masks stop the spread of disease. We need both.


Linking with

myquiltinfatuation Thursdays

can I get a whoop whoop Fridays   

finished or not  

 design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts
lovelaughquilt.mondays
sew can do mondays

patchwork Sunday                    
oh Scrap Sundays 






Thursday, August 19, 2021

I Like Thursday # 258

 

Welcome! It's Thursday and these are some of my small likes this week, come on in....

I love this cookie jar, and recently unpacked it... the movers hid a lot of our stuff!

would you like to share in the bean harvest? I picked 8 pods, pulled two beans from each, quick steamed them in the microwave and the three of us shared them. That's about it, no new blooms so no more beans... sadly it's been so hot vege don't want to grow

Missing the olympics? 

and weight lifting  at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R74eJFUUPnk

 


 

I watched a video about how to dress my body shape and they suggested a lightweight kimono jacket. I found one at amazon. Although they sent a gray instead of blue one, it wasn't worth trying to return, and when I put it on after washing it, dang if the video wasn't right!!! I think it adds style   even if I am only  wearing shorts and a t shirt! It is light weight and didn't fall off shoulders or need adjusting all day, and I felt more special as I went around the house.    that's a lot to like for a little money  link: https://www.amazon.com/Womens

I finished up a course this week  on creativity... it was fairly good and here is my sketchbook  to prove I did it... heh heh




I am also in the middle of a writer's workshop that includes meditation and it is wonderful... so much has come to me this week just from this free class with Kelly Blaser. If someone offers a free course I usually try to take it. One less personal exercise today was to choose 10 words from the chat list and in 3 minutes write a poem. 

Words to use: all, able,quiet, quest, absolutely, tender time tree truth fluid

"The quest is quiet
absolutely she believed in all of the truth that flowed fluidly
grew like a tree
able to shine light on all around
she felt the tender heart at her core " 
which kind of surprised me when I was able to write a poem in 3 minutes... never know what you can do til you try.

I liked baking the sweet potatoes a new way to me... trying to concoct candied ones

waiting for oven time

wedges, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon salt... bake stirring every 15 min til done. Very good but next time less sugar. 

sewing  


My post is on Saturdays but I finished this intricate block for the bats and boos quilt. I wanted to show my way of dealing with the pattern. I'm old school so I print it out because I HATE SCROLLING back and forth. I punched holes in and put it in a little notebook so I could flip back and forth! Teaser

the very center is now done!

watching

I saw the return of The Hustler, a game show where people try to decide who is the liar after hearing a set of clues... Craig Ferguson is moderator and funny. Our success rate is about 50/50 picking the one.

bachelor in paradise... junk food viewing for summer... yea!

movie: (netflix) Love Happens with Jennifer Anniston and Martin Sheen  entertaining view of a man who is grieving his wife's death writes a book and in fame finds more truth within

  Milo's Moments

Hi Y'all,,, this smoke is bothering my ears and Mama is hurting me by trying to clear them out. 

She says the word "ear" and being a smart poodle,  I learn the impawtant words like : 

ear (means run for your life!) bath (see first definition) French Toast, (come quick and get ahead of Daddy in line) out back (grab a ring toy and get ready to play keep away) treat ( a whimzee is coming at 8 pm which I know exactly when that is) 

please visit these people with lists of likes too! Join us just let mama know to add in your link

forgive mama if she doesn't leave a comment... it's been a hard month on her... 

https://100sweets.blogspot.com/2021/08/orange.html

Kim at  http://inmywords.kimdeister.com/

 grammajudyb.blogspot.com

http://3poodlesandanana.blogspot.com  
 

https://scrapatches.blogspot.com/    

https://whataboutrheema.blogspot.com/   

https://faithtrustandbreastcancer.blogspot.com/

 https://lavenderdreamstoo.blogspot.com/  

LINKING WITH