KIT FINISHED

 I bought a kit called The Language of Color.  It included a center panel and fabrics for several borders.  The fabrics are from a collection called The Language of Color.  The pattern for it would make a square quilt.  I don't like square quilts so I did some calculations and figured I could make it rectangular.  There were almost enough of the included fabrics to accomplish that.  Only one would be too short.  So I used a black and white print from my stash.  

First I made the center panel longer by adding some plain black fabric to the ends.  

I'm calling it Arielle because she's one of the authors of the book, The Secret Language of Color, which has nothing to do with this collection of fabrics.

NEW CRAYONS

 I saw a demonstration on the Caran D'ache Neocolor crayons.  So I bought them both. 

There's Neocolor I, wax pastels, water-resistance.  And, Neocolor II watersoluble crayons.

So cool.

COLOR CHOICES

 I started a new project.  Oh, no.  [Terry!  What about all those unfinished projects?]

I'm not going to worry about all those unfinished projects.  

I drew this pattern a few weeks ago, and I can't get it out of my head.  I have to make it.

I put up some fabrics on the wall to decide on which ones to use.

Pecan in the back with light blue and grey

Changed the Pecan to Carmel

Changed the light blue to that print.

Which ones?

DECISIONS, DECISIONS

 I have to decide on which colors I want to use on these little improv blocks.   All of the colors will stay the same, except for the right and left side points. I'm happy with rest, but I go back and forth about these.

The green is Peapod (brighter)

Green is Olive (duller, but the same as fabric in middle of block)

This is Leather - not used in blocks at all.

SEASON CHANGING?

 The Maple Leaves are starting to show their autumn colors.  Do they always start this early?

TARA WORKSHOP

I was lucky enough to get into Seattle Modern Quilt Guild's Zoom Workshop with Tara Faughnan.  It was limited to about 24 people.  

She talked about her approach to color and some of her strategies.  

We worked on making our own "Bars" quilt.

We started by putting two fabrics together to evoke an emotion - happy, calm, etc.

 She talked to us as a group for the first part, then we were sent off to work on our own.  We met back in small groups of about 7 participants so she could talk to us each individually about our palettes.  After that we all met back together to wind things up.  Overall, it was a good workshop. 

[My iron stopped working about midway through the day.  It didn't just quietly fade away either, it had to spew some horrible yellow water everywhere.]

ROAD 2 CA WINNER

I was pleasantly surprised today to find out my quilt, Carolinas, was awarded "Best Use of Color" in the Road to California Quilt Show and Conference 2020.  It's held in Ontario California, so we didn't attend.  My friend, Kim, who was working at the A-1 booth, sent me these pictures.

P.S. the award comes with a $1000 prize.  Yoo-hoo!

Here's a link to all of the winners.

YEAR OF COLOR

There's a website, yearofcolour.com that examines your year of Instagram posts and makes a mosaic of the colors from your photos.  

Here's mine:

GOOD BYE 2019

HELLO 2020 

FRIDAY ACRYLIC CLASS

This was the first of five classes I signed up for at Daniel Smith Art Supplies to learn about color and acrylics.  We spent this first class trying to figure out which colors sang to us so we could make our own personal color wheel.

It was fun.

HOMEWORK

I'm finally getting around to working on my homework for my design class.  I've been thinking about it and making drawings, but today I started making my samples in fabric.  Just before assembly, I decided to change some of the colors.  I was too tired to make a decision, so I'll do that tomorrow.

FUN WITH COLOR

I scanned my line drawings in Photoshop and pasted a bunch of little ones on a sheet of paper.  I can print out as many blanks as I need....

Here's the first one of the Boot that I colored.  I'm only limited by colored pencils and fabric availability.

This is great fun!  Something I can do in spare moments.

FIRST COLOR FOR EXCHANGE 43

I was so good at procrastinating today.

I cleaned up the studio and put new paper on my tables. I moved where I was working (not that I needed to, but more probably because it was something to do other than work on the print). In order to move working areas I needed an extension cord. I had to go borrow one. I took some pictures of the finished studio cabinets (Darrell had hung the last of the drawers that morning).

Finally, I realized what I was doing - avoiding getting started on the printing part. So, after we went to the grocery store and got some lunch, I got out my watercolors and started working on the colors. I had picked up a second mocha while we were out, so I was a-buzzing. I had lots of energy! [I usually only have one espresso in the morning, and never have coffee after lunch.]

The colors still aren't what I envision in my head, but I'm going for it.

The yellow was the color I wanted so I started with that - Aureolin yellow. It's kind of otherwordly, greenish and warm. I like that, but I wanted it to be very pale. It ended up not being pale, of course. I just got carried away trying to get a consistent coverage. Oh, well. It will all work out.

I have a weird mixture of very good tools and very cheap tools. I have nice brushes that I bought from McClains's. But I have yet to buy a nice baren. The good ones are very expensive. I haven't given myself a good reason. It's at the top of my list though. And I didn't notice that the bamboo covering was torn on the edge until I was ready to start. I figured I had better just start in after all my earlier procrastinating.

It actually went fairly well, I was pleased with the results. The real test will be with the next block, trying to get everything registered properly. That is the part I've been trying to avoid.

Did I mention that I went with Poplar wood. It was a plank Darrell had in his extra wood pile. He flattened for me, and it's a good thing he had to leave it long to go through the wide belt sander, because I ended up using both ends. I enjoyed carving it. The grain didn't give me any problems, it didn't fight against me. I could carve in any direction with no difficulty. There's not a lot of grain pattern, which means there probably won't be any grain showing in the print. Can't have it both ways.

SNITZELS - COLOR

Our assignment for this week was to make three Snitzels - one Achromatic, one Monochromatic and one with Complimentary colors.

I didn't have any idea how to start, or what was really needed or even meant by Snitzel.

I really didn't want to cut up fabric for this.  I really didn't want to get into my stash of black and whites for the Achromatic.  I was thinking it's a waste of fabric (more on this later).

I know...I could use paper.  I was at work and started cutting up my copy of The Stranger.  I tried freeform. It looked horrible.  I can't just pull this out of the sky.  I needed a direction.  So, I went with a quilt  idea.  I started cutting out triangles - with a rotary cutter and ruler.  Easy.  I cut out dark triangles and light triangles.  Then I just started moving them around.  Not too many different ways to arrange triangles.  It wasn't beautiful, but I pinned them to a piece of paper, and called it done.  

I like the way the pins look!

Next up, back at home was Monochromatic - all one color.  Which means to me that value is what is going to do all the work.  I pulled out my greens.    I eliminated all the fabrics with more than just green, which left very few that I liked.  I was a little surprised that I didn't have a lot of choices.  I had different shades of green - mostly yellow-greens and blue-greens.  I went with the group of fabrics that had a good value range, the blue-greens.

Jean had asked us not to use rotary cutters, but to free-form cut with scissors.   Oh, my.  I'm no good at free-form anything.  I need a plan.  I cut some strips (with the rotary cutter) and sewed them together, and cut random sized squares.  I figured if I didn't think about exact sizes and seam allowances I was headed in the right direction.  I was loosening up by stages.  Hey, I'm making progress.  I laid them out with other strips and this is what I got:                                                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                                                                                    
              




I pinned the strips to batting, and called it done, too.

Next up, the Complimentary colors.  I was looking forward to these colors.  I took an idea from my friend, Becky and used one of the more abstract photos I had taken while on our trip and used that as a 'plan'.  

Trying to find fabrics that look like the photo is very difficult, so you have to go with what you've got.  I found some interesting fabrics right away and had a lot of fun putting this together.  I don't like using fusibles, I don't like the way they feel.  So, I just cut out the fabrics...hey, is this 'free-form'?  Maybe!  But, I'm following the 'pattern' of the photograph, so I can do this.  I wanted to sew it all together, but Jean had said, no, just pin the pieces to batting.  

So, here is the photo, and the Snitzel I made:

Pretty cool, huh?