my creative week.... a finish, a painting, fabric acorns and two collaborations

 

a finish! table runner close up  12" X 35"

Welcome to this week's creativity round-up... a painting collaboration, a quilting collaboration, and following a pattern (difficult for me!) 

Let's start with the painting....

my friend at https://canadianneedlenana.blogspot.com/ takes spectacular photos of nature, this week she shared a pic of a junco which inspired me to try to draw then paint it...

I was struck by the blue mixed with black and white, and the little sparkling eyes. 

What inspires you to make art from nature? There's always something... how to capture the light on a feather, or texture, a color like metallic blue. You can's see this but I put iridescent paint on the head. For me drawing is challenging, which makes me really look at details. 

Then again, I simplified the background even blurring the rocks I drew in originally. I quite like how the leaves and grasses look here, and the wee legs, his head tilt. Thank you Jocelyn! 

 Back to sewing... and back to my studio happy space. I finished another piece from the scraps sent to me from Jan at The Colorful Fabriholic. She made a kaleidoscope quilt, which leaves many scraps cut into weird angles. She sent me those, and I've made 4 items from them and still have strips left!

She chose the fabrics, meaning color and textures, and I put the bits back together in fresh ways. 

to me it's similar to a project runway show challenge... what can you make with "this"?

or a puzzle which I have always enjoyed 

I had enough to make almost enough 60 degree diamonds to do a whole pattern. But since I didn't have enough, I made it work. 

I wonder if maybe I like it better for having to piece together something into almost a pattern. 

Like is a deviation from order actually more interesting?

 

 

 it's all quilted with metallic copper, green and purple mylar threads. Use size 90 metallica needle. It shimmers when the light catches it!

on wall hangings or table runners I like to use up less liked backing fabrics. Usually I find after using them they really are pretty too, like this sage green with botanical print...
 

 I had to fuss with the black binding to get those angles to miter, but it ties it all together, and it looks good on the table. 

I like it but wonder would I feel funny giving it as a gift when the blocks are pieced together this way?

would people mistakenly think I made mistakes, when I just made something different?

 this is on the design wall and you can see the upcoming RSC project of little acorns and free form geese from cut off triangles. I went from quilting and finishing to fussing with tiny pieces. These blocks finish at 6"!!!! You can see how small the geese pieces are if they are the cut away triangles from 1.5" half square triangle piecing!

see my finger?

the color of the month at RSC is brown/black. Okayyyyyy

I liked the free acorn block made with scrappy 1.5" squares and thought, that would be cute hanging from the mantle

the link is here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nAhTUdb_AHvi5UMrHhuKL-_kuPm8iADO/view

 so into the brown bin I went. It was overflowing.... but then it was a massive tangle of scraps. Once I got in there and sorted them by strip/size/angle they all fit back into the bin easily and I had a lot of pretty pieces to choose from. 

 

I went into my stash for background fabric and decided to use tan/cream colored with different patterns, which I seldom use. I even had some strips in the scrap bin in tan so I sorted til I found ones to cut to size. 

I started this on Thursday, when it turned colder  and felt Fall like. So far an afternoon of choices and making turned out 4 acorns and two geese units... 

I also did two new blocks I'll share next week, in brown, then black which completes those for this year's Rainbow scrap challenge colors.

I have two upcoming free workshops that are both new to me... one is: Deck of Dreams 5-day event

I'll let you know how they are.

linking with

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/

https://myblog-lunchbreak.blogspot.com/ 

patchwork Sunday                    

oh Scrap Sundays

design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts
lovelaughquilt.mondays 

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

Midweek makers wednesdays  

http://www.myquiltinfatuation.com/ 

off the wall Fridays   

peacock party

tgiffriday

finished or not