official end of summer? then why is it so hot!??!

one of my paintings from 2011

Summer  "officially" ends on Sept 23 when Fall starts in the Northern Hemisphere. However...
this is how things get stuck in our heads! we kind of grew up saying summer was June July and August, and Fall was Sept Oct Nov, or when school started, or after labor day when we were officially not allowed to wear white pants.

Imagine telling a woman in 1837 that one day women could put on just two layers of clothing... underpinnings and jeans and a t-shirt.
She'd faint, but maybe that would be from her corset.
Look at this video of all the layers expected in 1837... OMG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSrWu5_oYzI

Our forecast in Aurora CO this week is hot. Hothothot. highs of 86-94 plus sun all week. (pant pant)
Looking forward to Sept 23rd

I stopped a woman on the streets of Breckenridge Sunday and asked her to take a photo of her haircut. It was adorable and cut way up in back, off her neck. How I envied that! I asked where she got it done, she humorously answered from a foul-mouthed hair cutter in Colorado Springs, and our conversation took off. we parted and about 4 blocks later I exclaimed to dh, " I didn't get the salon name!!!" of course we didn't see her again.

Her words, "it's perfect for thin straight hair, and the only style that looks good on my roundish face"
Arghh!

in honor of the traditional American end of summer... enjoy norah jones andd summertime

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

Black and White Movie-star Flamingos

Roll out the red carpet, the black and white movie star Flamingos are here.
Flo Ziegfeld and Greta Garbo-Mingo ( I do NOT want to be alone) have joined the flock.
(BTW my design wall is white not pink as it appears here)

This is how it starts. Digging through the black and white scraps for teeny little flamingo like pieces.
As always the pattern is from Shirley Liby's sew precise.

How do I choose fabrics?
Thanks for asking, heh heh

It's scientific.

I likes what I likes.

And they should have movement and interest and contrast and be available in a scrap bin.

And I like to place the scrap just so.

Here they are joining the recent flock members. I have no Earthly idea how I will set these.

 I have a flamingo fabric collection, that's right, I know you're shocked. I'll wait while you recover.

Since there is water and sky in each little block, and since each little block was done at my whim so they are all different sizes, this will not be simple.

Of course.

Maybe I'll go around each one with the same fabric to unify them. Maybe there will be a big flamingo in the center. I don't know, I just make the blocks with little thought to the future.

It's like, when a fabric store clerk asks what I am going to do with a fabric while she cuts it.
Well, I hunted and gathered it, I'm going to take it home and clean (wash dry and fold) it, and it's going to join the others.
I'm adopting it.

Black and White dishes to follow, and that teapot, gonna be so cute!
go see other RSC quilts here

a couple more flamingos to go

another multi colored flamingo, love this fabric! The green with multi colored dots too.
Note the little octopus hiding near the legs,

on blocks this small you can use small scraps. And I save almost all scraps for this purpose. Never know when it will work!  See other lime blocks being made at superscrappy

All the multi-colored ones together.
Colorful types like to flock together...

Fall for Flamingos

I was challenged this week, to make my wild flamingos in the color of the month at RSC 2015... brown...

I went through the scrap bin, and found these fabrics for flamingos, water and sky.

I printed out the sew precise flamingo pattern at 6" X 7 " which means half of it is supposed to be water so the flamingo itself is about 3 " wide by 7"

I thought, how in the world will I do a brown flamingo?? Then a smart person commented that I should use one of the fabrics I considered in this month's cow block. see it here

And then this one sang out to me and I positioned it just so as I did with the one above. I get so focused on these little blocks. I inked in the eye with black, then circled it in white so it showed. I put some black lipstick on the beaks.
Another challenge met!

Catching up with some yellow flamingos

Catching up on the RSC 2015 with these two silly yellow flamingos.
Click on images to see the cool fabrics...
The one on the left is about 4" by 5", the one on the right about 7" by 4" and both made totally from the scrap bin from stuff like this....

lots of leftover water fabrics from a couple ocean quilts. If it makes me giggle, it comes home with me!
And these teensy scraps of fish staring at me screamed out to peek around flamingo legs.

pattern source  SewPrecise

a few other flamingos http://lapaylor.blogspot.com/search/label/flamingos

Orange you glad you're a flamingo??

These blocks from Sew Precise are sized at 4" X 6"

The flamingos are back and they're wearing orange this time, in honor of the rainbow scrap challenge color of the month. Looking good on them... in fact my native Florida Flamingos wore orange a lot.

When I was a young thing, I often went to hear my favorite trio play music. Jazzy music, with a piano, harmonica, and the washboard played by Flo Mingo. She was gorgeous, tall, thin, long curly dark hair, big smile, deep smoky voice. I mean, I already loved flamingos but she was the icing on the cake! 

When you start these blocks you have to get a pile of sky scraps and water scraps all ready....then match them to the body fabric tones....                      you can click on any image to make it larger

Sparkling water!!

This time I did not have the patience to do the teensy little beak with paper piecing, so I inked one in...

with these

And here's the whole flock as it "stands" (on one leg) now... missing a couple colors....

How will I set them??? I already have a working title

Blue Flamingos

This was the hardest challenge yet with the RSC2015.
Baby blue Flamingos. I wasn't sure I could achieve enough contrast to look right.
First of all, when I do anything with a color, I automatically put in many shades from light to dark of that color, so when the color is blue, I use baby to dark blue. Then the color for June was announced, light blue.

I had to really dig through the scrap bins for light blues that would contrast with the sky and water fabrics.

I went a bit turqoise-ish for this one.
I love it really!
Yea!

The visual texture in the fabric reminds me of feathers and the mix of sky fabrics keeps your eye moving.


Then there was this one...

I used the same fabric as on my last cow, for this and the fabric looks feathery in this, floral on the cow.
Perfect!

It's all in the placement and shadows of the part of the fabric you use. I kind of ran out and used a more teal one for the head then blended some teal pencil into the neck area to blend.

This time I used the cool aqua/blue batik for water.
It contrasts very well, and the legs really stand out.

I mean if you've got 'em, flaunt 'em! Right?

I still need to go back and do some yellow flamingos.

What I've learned doing these:
1. Color doesn't have to define an object,
2. I am loving seeing a flamingo develop in weird fun colors
3. Contrast is probably most important in definition of line/shape
4. I am already fretting about how I am going to set these critters
5. Those crabs gotta go in there somehow at the end!

Flamingos Rule!

7" X 7.5"

More little pointillist paintings. I took the paint daubers back out to paint one for a fellow blogger to use, so I tried a palm tree. I was born and raised in Florida. I love a flamingo...

These little experiments were fun to paint with the daubers. Then I added a few lines with marker.

They are about 7" square and were a challenge to machine quilt without sewing over my fingers.

I quilted them all with mylar metallic thread, rayon, and thicker cottons.
These three are bound with copper lame' that shimmers and catches the light

The seashell was quilted with neon rayon thread and a small zig-zag stitch sent up the shell in a straight line. Walking foot.
Then I kind of enjoyed the look so I went into the water with the zig zag.

Most of it was done with free motion.
The little fish were stenciled on with marker.

I'm thinking to hang them one under another with this at the top or bottom so they make a narrow banner. Good to bring in a little brightness to a small area. These are scrapbooking cardboard words.
This is why I hoard all kinds of stuff.

butterfly kisses

I wonder why I have done these little child like paintings? I usually take a lot of time with painting and drawings but this whole thing has been very free. Child like is a good definition. They look primitive but are kind of interesting to me. I used batting instead of my usual peltex this time, and they are flexible.
They have been fun, and fun is enough reason to make something.
Read about the painting in this link: pointillism-style.