Saturday, February 24, 2024

Creativity this week: 4 challenges, some paintings, and a workshop



whew! completed 4 challenges, painted a bit, and took a workshop on writing/ illustrating a novel. 

It  required all my creativity!   

Click on images to enlarge them

Let's start with the Project Quilting piece. The prompt was "hourglass" and we had one week to design, make and finish it. Here is my finished project

It will hang in my studio, reminding me of the speed of time (tempus Fugit ) that artists are happy when they are creating

I started with cutting two triangles of peltex stiff stabilizer, covering them with backing brought to the front

choosing which of my paintings on fabric to use took thought

I love both these little pieces, it was hard to commit to using them. They both glisten with metallic paints, now with mylar glitter thread for the free motion quilting, and sparkle of beads hand sewn on.


I put the painted fabric on top of the triangles and stitched around finishing the edges. The two triangles were stitched together after quilting. A backing covered strip of peltex was sewn across the join. The flowers are from the scrapbook section of michaels, made of paper but quite sturdy, I hand stitched them on. The hanger is a scrap of "mother of the bride" fabric.

embellishments not used

I love it, it's going to look pretty on my wall, is about 9" long, about 6 " wide

next up is using the same colors, but paint on paper...

I used my Kuretake impressionist watercolor palette for all three. The bottom one was to clean my brush between colors but I love how it looks like a forest! My kind of colorful forest! 

After painting all the colors as a leaf, to test them, I went around them with a poem

leaves of colors and alive, blooming, feathers of trees that can't fly because they are rooted to the ground. Can trees feel the fluttering leaves of color...

I was listening to a video of a woman reading our daily angel cards, and these messages came through for me... I wrote in different directions, turning the paper, filling in with different pens, until I was spent. Then I over painted in the impressionist paints, and put in a flower and leaves. I love the look of painting in letters, and around them positive and negative space. I like having the messages available in this form, sitting in front of the computer to remind me I am a spiritual entity living in a body. 

Next up is the stay at home round robin for this week. The prompt was "4" VERY open to interpretation

these are my rows this week, on the left and bottom, 4=patch blocks done two ways

I admit I spent more time trying to figure out how to keep my quilt integrated while adding in a 4 patch, I tried several renditions before settling on these fabrics, sizes, and shapes. 


I thought I would insert the green and white blocks next to the sunflower blocks (cut at 2.5") but that white wasn't balanced with the big trellis, so I repeated the center green fabric instead. The green on the white 4 patches repeated from the last row added, keeps it integrated. I'm in love with that white print!

I have stopped short of attaching the last 3 rows to my center, just sort of waiting... There is one more row to go in this challenge, but I had one week to do this row and met the challenge!

finally, I used red scraps this week, for rainbow scrap challenge, and did Joy's Table Scraps challenge to use scraps/ red/ and a heart

I drew in the two hearts with fabric markers!

I didn't want another little quilt, so I decided to make a book to hold hand embroidered works...

I layered a backing fabric, a batting, and two pieced of peltex along the edge that would be stiff enough to be the books cover, leaving a strip along the spine, without peltex, so I can stitch in pages of embroidery as I make them


two little flowers stitched on after quilting

had to include some hand embroidery, right?

a wee button for a closure! Ain't she sweet???

Inside of the book,

pretty threads to use for embroidery pages!

linking with

Sahrr round 5

table scraps 

Project Quilting 


design wall Mondays at smallquiltsanddollquilts

https://songbirddesigns.blog/monday-musings-6-26-23/ 

finished or not

https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

22 comments:

Helen said...

I love your hourglass piece. I love how it looks and the idea behind it.

Maggie said...

My head is just spinning, so much creativity happening right here on your blog. When I was younger this was how my brain would have been happy with the amount of productivity, now it is pretty much one thing at a time at a different pace. Beautiful work and great execution of the hour glass.

grammajudyb said...

Very lovely “Hourglass” piece. Love the sparkle and the added button, beads, dangles! Great ideas for the book cover too! I have some of that red hat fabric!

JanineMarie said...

I like how you continued prints from one side of the quilt to another on the SAHRR piece. It just really flows.

Laura K said...

You are very creative! I like seeing the variety of endeavors your engage in.

The Joyful Quilter said...

What a darling project for PQ15.4 and a fun Stitch Book for the TABLE SCRAPS Challenge, LeeAnna!! Two quilt projects and you painted, too? hat a wonderful week of creativity!

PaintedThread said...

Love that hourglass! so many cool projects.

Tigger's Mum said...

Love the colours in your hourglass. Greens and purples my favorite combo.

Janine @ Rainbow Hare said...

You've made a lovely collection of things this week. I like the way you've interpreted '4' for the SAHRR :)

PersimonDreams said...

lovely!

Sara said...

What an awesome week of creativity! The little red book is gorgeous, but that hourglass piece just has me speechless. Wow!

CathieJ said...

You are working on a lot of great projects. I love the checkerboard borders.

Kathleen said...

Your hourglass piece is stunning! I so love the paint, thread and embellishments. The sunflower sahrr is lovely and you are making wonderful additions each week. Waiting until today's round is good...as once made, they are easy to attach!

Frédérique - Quilting Patchwork Appliqué said...

What a fabulous idea for the hourglass prompt! It's very elegant. I also love your paintings, the "forest" is cute and lovely! Well done with fussy cutting the flowers into 4-patches, it's fun to see your quilt top growing!
Your book for pages of embroidery is wonderful, I love everything with it, and you make me want to make one by myself... at least to try to make one ;)
Thank you so much for sharing!

sonja said...

your Kuretake impressionist watercolor palette reminds me of watercolored marshmallows, yummy !!

Your fabric multi media hourglass is super dooper color and good
use of stuff collected and finally finding a home.

"time keeps on slipping, slipping ......."
(Steve Miller band "fly like an eagle" circa 1976.....

so many songs are written on time,
that elusive zone making, painting, quilting, sewing.... puts me in!

Jennifer Fulton Inquiring Quilter said...

What a lovely week of art! So inspiring and beautiful. Thanks for sharing on my weekly show and tell, Wednesday Wait Loss. https://www.inquiringquilter.com/questions/2024/02/28/wednesday-wait-loss-369

Debra She Who Seeks said...

Lovely creations, all of them!

DVArtist said...

OMGosh!!!! I can't tell you how much I love love love that hour glass. The first photo I thought it was a fan. Then, the full photo. This is just brilliant and one of my favorite creations by you. So much going on too. I love the red and the happy face. All the hats, oh yeah that is so cool. As you can read you have made me happy with your post. Thank you for joining FFO and have a very nice day.

Gwyned Trefethen said...

I knew as soon as I sew the photo showing just one triangle with flowers it had to be you. Always to see what you get up to during the week.

Fundy Blue said...

Wow! Your processes and results are great, Leeanna! Take a bow!

Bleubeard and Elizabeth said...

My internet has created a glitch, so I am running late visiting.

I love your art and your wall hanging, but I really LOVE your red book cover and those threads.

Nikki said...

Love the hourglass piece. Well done!