Coloring Inside the Lines

Here we see some of the colors being added to the pattern I posted yesterday.  The orange to red piece in the lower left corner is extending past the gear so that I have some material with which to bind the quilt when I am done.

And here I've finished the upper left hand corner.  Do you see how differently you relate to this once it's no longer a line drawing?  You're soaking up the color and the shapes, aren't you?  I know I am.

Ursula left a comment on yesterday's post asking about color choice and how do I do that?  I guess when I approach a quilt, either I'm thinking of a very limited color scheme, or I'm thinking in terms of warm colors vs. cool colors or light vs. dark.  

In this quilt, it's about warm vs. cool and light vs. dark.  I knew I wanted to have red at the center of the quilt, and actually it's a red orange I've used as the background of the dark blue gear.  I think as I'm building this up, I'm looking for the color that would contrast the most with the back ground and the colors surrounding, but I don't want to be too repetitive. 

 And now that I have this much of it built up, the high color contrast is a little kiddish or whimsical, and I think I'd better add some brown to tone it down.  And I think I would also like to see this pattern made with a more limited color scheme, too.  

By that I mean: all cool colors, or all blue, or maybe red, black and white.  We all have our favorites, and we see them all the time.  Primary colors would also work, but then it would look like an Ikea quilt.  And then once I've chosen a limited color scheme, say all blue, I would do something to break it a little: like add a little orange (blue's complement) or something to just add a bit of interest and show that I was playing and not being so strict.  I like kiddish and whimsical, I think it's important to give your viewers the distinct impression that you had fun making a piece.  But I also want to be taken seriously.  Adding in the neutrals or earth tones can do that.

Hope that answers your question, Ursula.

And here's what I woke up to as I was having my first potty break of the day yesterday morning:

This is a storage cabinet in my bathroom with colored, transparent drawers. I sit facing it. It made me laff, so I had to share it.

New Werk

Here is the next pattern in the series of Art Werks that I am making.  It's always interesting to me to see the transition from pattern to completed work.  With the pattern, all you see is line; there is no color.  With the completed work, the first thing you see is color, and then you take in the shapes.  The fine line is lost, but it's still there, too.  Or rather, it is suggested.  Shape takes the place of line. 

It's a little like my treatment of leftovers: I'm pleased with saving the food for the laughable idea that we might eat it again (the lines in the pattern), and then I'm pleased with the fastidiousness of tossing the two- or three-week old science project the food has turned into because I'm making the fridge a cleaner place (the shapes and colors).  Do you see what I mean?

If I've confused (or disgusted you), please wait for the finished product.

Creativity

This morning while surfing the blogs I usually look at, I found this very important video clip at BellaDia.  Immediately after watching it, I knew I had to put it on my blog, too, so as to increase the possibility of more viewers.  (If you can't see the whole thing on my blog, click on the link about and see at at BellaDia.)

The clip runs for a little over 20 minutes, and is often very funny.  I hope you will enjoy it and it will make you think about creativity, a wonderful gift.

A Gift For a Friend

On Saturday, I will be celebrating the birthday of a dear friend of mine. Her name is Penny and she is from New Zealand. So, I saw this as an opportunity to try out that free-motion embroidery idea I blogged about days ago.

I got a picture of the New Zealand penny on line and I traced it onto Solvy - a water soluble stabilizer. I used an oil-based permanent marker for this so it wouldn't bleed or smear.


The penny I traced was dated 1957, but I changed it to 1960 - her birth year.




Then I stitched the design. This was not as easy as that sentence would imply. After I stitched the outside circle, I decided it would be prudent to put a layer of tear-away stabilizer on the back. And my sewing machine was most uncooperative. I think I must really replace it soon. I had to rethread and re-bobbin it every couple of minutes. But somehow, I managed to make it look all right.
This is sewn onto a zippered jacket, btw, in turquoise - our favorite color.



The penny had these dots interspersed along the outside edge, and they didn't stitch too well, so I decided to put a copper sequin in their place: three of them to be exact.

So, if you are reading this blog and you know Penny, please don't tip her off!

Faux Sushi

For April Fool's Day I met with some friends for a time of game playing - card games and board games.  This was my contribution to the snack table.  Not very sushi-like sushi.  They are cut-in-thirds Twiggies - a Singaporean version of Twinkies (not nearly as good, unfortunately) with a Japanese candy called Chocobabies stuffed into the frosting (these aren't like any American candy I know of, but they are good!) and wrapped with Fruit Roll-ups, in strawberry!  I wanted the green roll-ups, but I was lucky to get any, so I took the red ones.

I had to explain to many people that this wasn't REAL sushi (I am not the only one who doesn't eat raw fish), and that was pretty funny because I didn't think my sushi looked like the real thing at all.  Once I mentioned the ingredients, tho, people were happy to have one.  What a riot!

I also made a new friend yesterday, a new mom at my daughter's school, and she's a quilter - and not only a quilter, but a FUSER for heaven's sake!  I feel very blessed that God has allowed me to make her acquaintance at this point in my life, when I desperately needed to meet someone who speaks my language.  

A Return to Normal

That's a dubious blog title.

But Spring Break has ended, and both my beloveds have returned to their normal schedules.

Speaking of dubious, spring itself is a dubious season in Singapore.  There's scant seasonal variation here, so close to the equator.  So, we misplaced northerners must make spring for ourselves.

Bougainvillea: not necessarily a spring flower, but pink is a sort of spring color...

Some small yellow flower

Frangipani, I believe...

Something borrowed, something blue...

I don't know what this is, but it must be related to bird of paradise.

So, I don't have any pictures of baby birds or bunnies to make this post a true spring-like post, but how about...

Kittens!

A Nifty Idea

I saw this video tutorial on this blog I look at regularly, Craftzine, about free-motion embroidery t-shirts made by a woman who has a site called Girlpopcorn.com.  Apparently, she finds a picture of the thing she wants to embroider, puts it through Photoshop to make a line drawing of the object, traces the drawing onto water-soluble stabilizer, and then uses the stabilizer as a template to stitch the object onto a t-shirt.  

I may or may not fool around with this idea, but for now the inspiration button is all lit up on my dashboard..