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Saturday, May 27, 2023

my creative week... one drawing/painting, two quilts and a flamingo rising

 

"creativity takes courage"  H. Matisse

welcome to my creative week's round up of projects... starting with this bit of felt, and my attempt to do a shisha stitch to keep the medallion attached. I have not mastered this stitch obviously but for some reason I really like this little bit to use sometime, probably on a journal cover.
as I sewed this week, the sun shone in through the closed blinds and I caught sight of this pretty shadow
I think it would make a fine image to frame for my studio. Moments rise up, and we notice them or not but I hope I notice more often than not

 each morning as I sip coffee, read emails and see what new horrors have surfaced in the news, I do a little art project... I wanted to do a face and since I just love elephants, I googled images of babies

With my plain paper sketchbook, and a pencil who's graphite smears easily, I did this

trying to capture proportion, shadows, sweetness on a little face. Looking from image to blank page I always get a little catch in my breath... can I do this? Capture a mood or expression? I love this baby

Hard to see on my images here but the bit of purple, gold and gray watercolor drops really add a background with just a few swipes of the water brush... a lesson in not over painting. 

I used my new tombow fudenosuke brush pen to letter in the word that comes to mind when I see babies of any kind

Now for my sewing friends, there was a lot of stitching going on this week. 

Lots of decisions to be made on the portal project... block numbers, proportion, color placement, then being so surprised at just how much smaller it got with the blocks sewn together

4 rows sewn, the bottom to go!

then it was time to match seams of blocks, keep this thing straight and unstretched as I carefully sewed the long rows together. There were a number of needle sticks along the way as I navigated the seams,

SO MANY SEAMS

the next decision is whether to border, how large I want the finished quilt to be (around 40" wide tops, and 50" long if possible" ) then which fabric will finish it off, stop your eye, accent but not steal the show...
I see this as sun shining through autumn trees... so
I liked the leaf fabric here

I loved that old Benartex leaf fabric for the change in perspective but found thru the week of coming into the studio and looking at it, that it takes the focus from the center I worked so hard on so the bottom fabric still fall like, might be the one. Plus a skinny black binding... I'll show you when it's done. 

It's gonna be a bear to quilt on my little domestic machine, oy

Thursday evening I got the grand idea to start this month's table scraps quilt... due on Friday! I got out the box of orange scraps for RSC color of the month and chose some pretty but thin strips to sew together to make another bedside table topper

trimmed to ~13" X 18" ready to quilt

I appliqued a cute homespun strip, love the glow this has in person, but it was very frayed. No worries, I appliqued it to the strip set and let it fray to it's heart's content! I like texture! I haven't done this before either, and always seek to try some new thing to any challenge quilt. 

there is a mix of straight line quilting, and curvy free motion work. I used orange cotton thread by Metler, and this mylar thread by superior for sparkle and glisten

I pulled lots of fun flamingo fabrics to use for backing


but chose this fun one, and LET myself cut it out of yardage!

why flamingos you may ask? I LOVE flamingos and my plan is to hand embroider a flamingo to the front... I googled coloring pages and found this (LINK here)

the leaves are from a Zen stitch teacher's gift to us

so this is how it will go... but I haven't figured out how to transfer the image yet, (probably trace over soral yellow chalk paper) and whether to do the bird in black perle cotton or purple.

I'll use outline stitch, an overlapping straight stitch for feather edges, and chain stitch for neck at least

I was rushing to finish this by Friday night but after the contortions needed to groom the lovely Milo, my body spasmed and all sewing went out the window. sad. 

I did a speedy binding, sewing a 1.5" strip of fushia to the back of the quilt, bringing it around to the front, folding the raw edge to the quilt, then flipping that finished edge to the front for machine topstitching with the glitter thread, twice. 

it looks so good, with the two rows of top stitching on the 3/8th inch finished binding, it looks piped almost

and that brings this session to a close... I'll be doing the flamingo embroidery today, and share the finished thing next week I hope along with the finished portal top. 

find your creative happy place y'all

design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts

 link party

finished or not

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

 



21 comments:

  1. Your little elephant piece is so sweet. But the orange background will be the PERFECT tropical sunset behind the flamingo. I'm excited to see the embroidery make the flamingo come alive.

    I'm finding that NOT following the news in the morning - which used to be my early morning routine - has begun my day on a more positive note.

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  2. Love the shadow of the pins! Very creative!

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  3. I love your orange table topper. Fabulous texture! Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

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  4. I love all your stuff, as always, but especially that fall themed quilt. It will be absolutely lovely finished. As for the news, I've given it up for the summer. Somehow I don't think it will be much different come September!

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  5. I look forward to seeing the flamingo stitched onto the sunset table topper. I'm trying to spend less time reading the news since there's nothing I can do about it and it just depresses me.
    Pat

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  6. Portal and the flamingo are going to be SEW beautiful!! Your baby elephant painting is very sweet, LeeAnna. I think you absolutely ROCKED all you set out to accomplish on that one!

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  7. What a fun idea to embroider the flamingo onto your pieced background! I'll enjoy seeing that when you5ready to share it!

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  8. Isn't it amazing how a few swishes of paint barely even there like your "bits of purple, gold, and gray water drops" can create your mood and finish a piece? I love that.

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  9. Can’t wait to see your portal quilt done! And about TableScraps… I’m pretty sure the Linky Party is open until the 31st, if you get Fanny Flamingo finished! No worries though, your fans will wait on your creation!
    Love your baby elephant, he/she is pure cuteness!

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  10. Courage…yes..courage. My daughter gave me a heart shaped stone with courage etched in the middle.
    It reminds me to be courageous.
    I’ve been wanting to make a needle book and you’ve inspired me – thank you!
    Yes! Your shadow picture would be a lovely framed inspiration piece for your studio!
    Yes, Pure joy! Is that part of an elephant trunk in the “P”? Nice touch!
    Your sewing project is amazing! I love your creative mind! So wonderful and free! Hugs to you!

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  11. I love the look of this cute baby elephant, beautiful drawing! Portal is coming along nicely, your color placement is pretty, and adding a border is a great idea.
    I can't wait to see the embroidered flamingo, and the background is gorgeous! Pretty pink binding.
    Thank you for sharing your projects and linking up.

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  12. You have the best ideas and your execution of the ideas is fabulous! Looking forward to the flamingo finish!

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  13. Wow, WOW, and more. Have enjoyed seeing your quilt come along, so much color it always makes me smile. The shadow is awesome. I think many of us are too hurried sometimes to take notice of things like that in our daily lives. My Mom had a thing about elephants as well and had several cute ceramic ones, so your cute sketch made me think of her.
    Traveling Suitcase

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  14. Love your quick little RSC quilt! Those colors just sing to me. With the addition of the flamingo as you've planned this is going to be phenomenal! Thanks for sharing on my weekly show and tell, Wednesday Wait Loss. https://www.inquiringquilter.com/questions/2023/05/31/wednesday-wait-loss-330

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  15. Love the baby elephant picture, you have some wonderful projects going and the photo of pins shadows would be a lovely piece to hang. I love it.

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  16. Hi LeeAnna, what a great little piece for the Table Scraps challenge. I love those colours and the mouvement and texture. Good luck with all of your projects!

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  17. I think you captured the innocence of the little elephant perfectly. I do love the colors of your flamingo quilt - so bright, like a tropical sunset. The photo of the pincushion with the shadow is wonderful, and I do like your pincushion, too! I am a news junky. Always have been and always will be. I tend to look for reasons to have hope that we can someday figure it all out. Or at least some of us... Hope you feel better. x K

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  18. Your baby elephant is a charmer. Lots of quilting lots of seams. Bravo.
    Thanks for linking to AFFF

    Much💖love

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  19. I am always so impressed at all the art you create. However, that elephant is amazing. Thank you for sharing with FFO and have a lovely weekend.

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  20. I love Elephants too ... I grew up loving Elephants and my Grandmother used to buy me an elephant figurine every trip she took so I had elephants from everywhere. My collection grew to be huge, but sadly, when we moved the last time I sold most of them so my son wouldn't have to figure out what to do with them once I was gone. I miss them but have pictures so that will have to do. As for your art you clearly captured the sweetness in this baby and he looks so happy. I love the picture. Your sewing makes my eyes cross ... I can't imagine how you manage to put all of those colors together and to sew, sew, sew them. You have far more patience than I have and might I say talent as well. A wonderful post Leeanna ...

    Andrea @ From the sol

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  21. Ohhh I like that flamingo - that is going to look cool!

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