Not Afraid of Color: March 2022

Thursday, March 31, 2022

i like thursday # 290

welcome to this week's list of likes. The pic above is an assemblage of fabric I painted, then handstitched this week. I'll put the full piece and details in Saturday's post.

I had two big finishes in quilt making this week the posts are here: HERE

and HERE

I've been slowly doing the lessons from Sketchbook Revival and learning a lot. I've had a lot of trouble with concentration this week, and the weather didn't help. 80 deg F one day, snowing the next... when it's hot our bedroom is uncomfortable as it gets full sun all day and won't cool off with open windows.

a few pics from my sketchbook this week:

the lesson was to paint a background, scribble over with pencil, tear paper to collage, then add symbols

I always do a small portrait of the instructor to start my lessons, and remember them. I put their name the lesson title, the date and then take notes right on the sketch

this day we were told "if you can see it, you can draw it" and I used this pic of Milo as inspiration

It's hard to draw a black poodle, and I wanted to capture his tilted head, so cute

I tried to draw the teacher's folded hand as she leaned on it, hands are also hard. I like my sketch a lot, and the shading done all with pencil. The next lesson was brilliant in that I can use the techniques in fabric too... paint on heavy paper (or stabilizer) and apply to a collage on paper (or fabric)

I feel I captured the instructor's look, and just painted mushrooms into my sketchbook, but will follow up on the 3-d aspect soon...

I am enjoying my lessons and am quite behind but that's okay, I have to learn at my speed

I had to paint this instructor several times til I got the essence of her on the bottom left image... what makes a person look unique? Have you ever thought about that?

Watching on TV

same stuff except I'm also enjoying the silly romance finding show "the courtship" where modern would-be mates dress and behave like Regency era English. I'm in solid mourning for the last season of This is US.

sadly I saw the Oscars where someone didn't like a joke told, and physically assaulted the host. You can feel everything you want, but you cannot by law or decency act on it by assaulting another person. Is anyone else showing self control these days? I miss decency in action.

Find Dining

I tried out my candy mold (from Michaels ) to make these peanut butter cups... well I used what I had... which was sunflower butter (dh is unable to digest p-butter) and dark chocolate chips. Basically you melt the chocolate pour a bit into the mold, then mix the nut butter, powdered sugar, and butter and spread on top, then add in another dollop of chocolate. They tasted good but were too hard to bite.

I licked the nutbutter mixture off the chocolate... waste not want not

enjoy this cuteness... squee!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLfFxxAF5lM

I think my favorite segment was the dog in bed saying "today is not the day and I am not the one"...I feel that way a lot lately...

Perserverence | Words quotes, Inspirational quotes, Quotes

Milo's Moment

Milo: while I was guarding the house from upstairs this week, Mama called me down to watch the squirrel channel...

Mama: "Milo, there is a squirrel right outside the back door!" (rumbling of big poodle feet running down the stairs at a gallop)

Milo: Mama! Did you know there is a squirrel outside? Lemme out!

Mama: oh let's let her live, just keep an eye on her and try not to bark!

Milo: later this week I needed to break down a toy... whew!

it wasn't easy but it needed to get done. See that octopus has been needing his legs chewed off for weeks! It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it and I'm just the poodle for the job!

I am also the toy inspector here, and I declare I need a new octopus!

now sit stay and visit mama's friend's to see their list of likes, and we always like new friends here so if you write a list let mama know the link!

https://quiltschmilt.ca/blog-posts/

grammajudyb.blogspot.com

http://littlepenguinquilts

craftscaviescontras

http://imworkingonaproject.blogspot.com/

https://knittingquilter.blogspot.com/

http://www.piecefulthoughts.com

https://canadianneedlenana.blogspot.com/

https://whataboutrheema.blogspot.com/

http://3poodlesandanana.blogspot.com

https://www.homesewnbyus.com/

the knitty quilter

https://lavenderdreamstoo.blogspot.com/

https://scrapatches.blogspot.com/

Melva Loves Scraps

https://100sweets.blogspot.com/

Faith, Trust and Breast Cancer

LINKING WITH

https://brianshomeblog.com/

http://itsasmalltownlife.blogspot.com/

http://goodrandomfun.blogspot.com

https://www.knitbygodshand.com/

friday smiles at a stitch in time

friday bliss

Saturday, March 26, 2022

sewing round up "Table Scraps" for March

For this month's Table Scraps challenge to use our scraps to make something with flowers on it, I made a small table topper 12" x 12" using scraps from making a bed quilt of flowering snowball blocks.

Yep I keep it all... all scraps! I layered them on stabilizer, then couldn't pick a background, so I made one with green scraps.

I just layed them on the peltex batting, overlapping, and started quilting

Cotton threads in a wide variety of colors, gold metallic around the center dots.

no binding, just a double layer of zig zag stitch

I actually wanted to make all these, and will... the small one at the bottom will become a journal cover, the one at the left will be a spring banner, from a painting I did of a simple yellow flower.

I improv pieced sections to cut into petals and plan to use this hand dyed fabric background and keep it simple with pretty stitching

while I like the petals I might put this sheer over them

I decided to do these blocks for the RSC this year along with random projects.

from AQS newsletter, in 1930's print scraps from a bed quilt made years ago

did you know about this , the quiltfolk people are doing a project from book covers

and they do a studio tour too...

finished "glamingo" this week and the post is here

happy stitching!

linking to

Table Scraps

RSC

patchwork Sunday
oh Scrap Sundays

design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts
lovelaughquilt.mondays

http://www.inquiringquilter.com/ Wednesday wait loss

Midweek makers wednesdays

Friday, March 25, 2022

"Glamingo"

"Glamingo" 25" X 36" is finished! (forgive my poor pictures please)

The challenge of Stay At Home Round Robin (SAHRR) this year was to follow the prompts each week adding to your center...this was mine

the next round was to add " curves" and I needed to think what had curves that went with my tropical flamingo theme... seashells! I paper pieced these tiny intricate shells with satin, rhinestone speckled fussy fabrics

tearing the paper out was not easy. Each row caused me to figure out how to incorporate them into the whole piece, and allowed me to use my stash. See the seagull fabric? Note the binding... a vintage Jane Sassamon fabric that finds it's way into many of my quilts, combines deep pink with lime green!

Note I try to use repetition of color, lime palmetto buses is repeated in the binding

the next prompt was "diamonds" and what better way than to turn them into water swirls as a flamingo foot gracefully dips in...

small but mighty! I used many batik fabrics to blend into sun dappled water here, then carried them out into the "album blocks...

I got to use pretty prints of tropical flowers in the block that has triangles on opposite sides

There was a "star" prompt, where I chose to make maverick stars... made three and tried to fit them all in but ended up with one

here you can see I chose two fabrics to bind the finished quilt. I have made nearly 300 quilts over time, so I really don't want lots of big ones, and chose to challenge myself to follow prompts while keeping the finished size small

these stars were appliqued into the sky with sparkly white glitter fabrics. I had a 5" strip of the border fabric in my stash and used it up in this quilt... I'll miss it as it has great colors, movement and gold

Notice the flamingos appliqued in each scene!!!

I must say including a shoo fly block stumped me for days!!! When I paint from real subjects I look for the essence of that object to capture. When I paint a portrait I look for what makes their faces unique. When I paint from nature I seek the colors and lines that convey that scene. So when I looked at shoo fly blocks I sought the basis of what made them unique

I looked at them online and realized the block's components had four triangles on the outside corners... like photo albums!!! Out came the tropical prints to become "postcards" and I made lots of them...

I moved them round and round the quilt trying to make them work...

it all got chaotic however, my eyes not finding any place to rest. Sadly these had to be left out of the finished piece but I was able to keep in the bottom row of them.

Balance is important. Symmetry is not my goal in art quilts but balance is important.

I will use these lovelies in a stand alone banner somehow in the next few weeks as I just love them!!

So happily I am finished with this bright fun piece, maybe the 20th in a series of flamingo inspired quilts..... for me there is infinite inspiration in the curve of a long neck, the color of feathers, the way legs bend backwards to ours. My flamingo fabric stash is large, no doubt there will be many more to come!

linking with

https://quiltinggail.com/2022/03/20/sahrr-2022-the-finale-the-parade/

patchwork Sunday

lovelaughquilt.mondays

http://www.inquiringquilter.com/ Wednesday wait loss

Midweek makers wednesdays

ff the wall Fridays
tgiffriday

finished or n

Thursday, March 24, 2022

I Like Thursday # 289

day two lesson one

Welcome to this week's list of likes... starting with the return of Sketchbook Revival

These are a series of lessons on art, two videos a day of instruction, for two weeks. I look forward to this every year and the page above is from day two, lesson one.

I gather art supplies, watch a video and start. I always date the page, draw/paint a portrait of the teacher, and jot down notes on the exercise

day one lesson 2

favorite paints KOI travel set

I am already behind but I have time to take the lessons and absorb the learning, and had to take time this week to finish my round robin piece, "Glamingo" for it's post on Friday

just a bit of the finished piece

and to work on my "table scraps" challenge piece with a prompt of "flowers".

Speaking of which Joy and I had a bee meeting on zoom this week, where we worked on these projects while chatting and laughing. Where does the time go?

It sped away this week when I talked to Cindy about sketchbook, and life too

I liked seeing all my project quilting art quilts in one post last weekend https://lapaylor.blogspot.com/2022/03/sewing-round-up-summer-breeze.html

the latest one, Summer Breeze

I made potato leek soup this week, sorry no pictures, and no recipe. Just sauteed leeks in butter, added potatoes, spices, chicken broth and it was just wonderful

I plan to make these buns for spring, maybe over the weekend

cardamom buns

painted my nails this weekend for first time in a while...Essie "rome around"

reading

turned in two audio books unfinished this week

Lily and the octopus... too weird and which got too scary but then listened to

which was fun and just started the next in the series

still reading at night on ebook

which is really funny. A character study of sorts where lives are intersecting

Watching on TV

sadly finished Agatha Raisin, Virgin River, and are on the last episode of Bridgerton...but new seasons of Virgin River and Bridgerton will start soon. Love Survivor this time, and American Idol has been so touching. With all the hate in the world, it's good to see young people who have a passion for music.

This is US is always good and they keep reminding us it's in it's last season, boohoo. Murdoch Mysteries is returning thank goodness

Milo's Moments