ANOTHER WALL OF SUNFLOWERS

 Darrell hung the ongoing collection of Sunflower art I've been accumulating for a while now.

DAY 7 SKETCH

 I'm a little late, but here is Day 7 of the 7DaySketchbookChallenge.  The prompt is 'Something On The Wall'. 

I have a print by David Weidman, Sunflowers II.  And I love it.  I really wanted to sketch it when I heard the prompt.  

I did an ink outline and then froze up.  I think I'm afraid to add watercolor or anything for fear of wrecking it.  Silly, I know.  I may yet do it.

If you didn't already know, I have a collection of sunflower prints and paintings.  Another obsession of mine.

PHOTO DAY

 Darrell had his studio set up to take the pictues of his Fremont Chest of Drawers.  When he was done he took pictures of some of my quilts.

'Flowers' by Barbara Brackman from 1998

FOLLOW THE SUN TOP

 I sewed all of the blocks and rows together.  The top for 'Follow the Sun' is ready to be quilted.

I then made a backing with a label and loaded it up on Erik the Bold (I finally named the new Q24) and looked for an appropriate quilting pattern.  

I want to try my first edge-to-edge on this one.

DIVERSION

 Oh, I'm having serious doubts about what to do with Amity Baroque.  I feel stuck and confused and worried I'll mess it all up.

So...

I decided to finally do something about having too much fabric.  I took all of those old paisleys off the top of the cabinet - I'll deal with them later.  And I ordered some storage bins so I can sort my scraps into colors.  Those storage bins will then go on top of the fabric cabinet.

In the meantime, I'm going to do some somewhat mindless sewing...

I've been looking at doing something to this great sunflower fabric I had.  I had recently purchased some yellow/orange/black fabric to go with and think I'm all set to do the 1-2-3 pattern that I did with the Yuki quilt, but bigger.

I cut the strips and sewed them together yesterday, and today I cut them again and sewed them into blocks.  I ended up with 105 blocks.   But, I can't sew them together until I can put them up on the design wall and make a pleasing arrangement.  That means I have to get the big flower off the wall.

SATURDAY WALK

 Jelly and I walked around the neighborhood this morning, with a short stop at the Barton Pea Patch.  Things are winding down there, but there were still some beautiful flowers and things to see.

FLOWERS II - MINE!

 I've coveted David Weidman's print Flowers II for years now.  I finally broke down and bought one.  It arrived a few days ago.  Today we took it to be framed.  We spent some time deciding on mat color and frame style, and even the type of glass.  

It won't be done until the middle of September - and they kept my print.  I felt like I left a child in their care.  And, I can hardly wait!

FLOWER DOODLE 2

 I put some color on a watercolor page last night:

Today I used Walnut Ink and a bamboo 'pen' to imagine some flowers onto it.

Yuki found a hiding spot from where she could ambush Bentley and the dogs.

WEDNESDAY SUNFLOWERS

I spent a few hours painting these sunflowers in acrylics on bristol paper.

TEXTURE SUNFLOWER

Here's my finished texture project. 

TEXTURE STARTS

I'm not thrilled about this assignment.  But...

I've made a start.  I started with one of my many 10" square hardboards (that I have waiting in a stack).

I cut dried and flattend Madrona bark into squares and made a checkerboard background.

Of course, it's a sunflower.

BUSY SUNDAY

After breakfast and grocery shopping we went for a walk at Camp Long.

Jelly's eyes have been running and are red and swollen.  I didn't want to wait until Monday for our regular vet and thought I'd give the 24 hour vet a try.  I called, they said the visit would be only $30, which is cheaper than our regular vet, I think.  It turned out to be a definitely longer wait though.  We were very bored.

Bentley wants me to paint his portrait with the sunflowers.

 I started on the next block in my flower series.

IMPRESSIONIST SUNFLOWERS

So, I started over with making an impressionistic painting of the sunflowers.

It went quickly.  I like it.

  I did do a few more touches on this one and then I took it upstairs to put on some coats of sealer.

LAST ITERATION

I changed the table and fixed a few things.  I think it's done.

THIRD DAY SUNFLOWERS

Here's after the third day of painting on the sunflowers.

SECOND DAY SUNFLOWERS

I was back at the sunflower painting this afternoon.  It's coming along.

SUNFLOWER PAINTING START

I went to Daniel Smith today for my watercolor class.  Great fun again.

While in the store I bought some stretchers and made up a canvas when I got home and made a start on my Sunflower painting, outside under the gazebo on the picnic table.

CHANGING THREADS

I'm having to change thread colors a lot with this quilt.

I'm enjoying using this new HQ Ditch Ruler from HandiQuilter.  It does it's job very well.  It has a little arch at each end that I'm using on the smaller leaves.  

I got my mom to do a paint-by-numbers of sunflowers to add to my collection.  And then was pleasantly thrilled when my sister, Sue, surprised me with a colored pencil drawing she did.

Mom's is bottom left, Sue's is bottom middle.  I did the paint-by-number in the center and the original painting on the bottom right.  Van Gogh did the two big ones.  The upper middle that you can't really see is what started it.  I bought this really cool instant-photo art of sunflowers and haven't been able to stop.

GOOD PROGRESS

I was out in the studio before 7am and went to work quilting on Chain Reaction.  I got a good three rows and their sides done.  I even rolled it forward, unpinned the bottom side of the top and basted it down and then stitched in the ditch around all the remaining squares.  I'm all set to finish it up tomorrow.

I am now repeating patterns that I did on the first half.  I seem to be doing a much better job.

This 'Peony' is much better.  I've done quite a few of these now.

Darrell and I took the dogs to Lincoln Park then had sandwiches at Wildwood Market and Deli.  

I got my Mom's paint-by-number sunflower painting hung up finally.  I sent her a picture of my collection.

That's Mom's on the bottom left.