It’s the dead of winter in sunny old California, but tulips are not to be found even here until the spring. The beauty of tulips, especially the pale ones, is the vast and subtle array of colors found within a single blossom. As a kid in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, I loved the arrival of the tulips through the snow.
The same tomatoes from yesterday. This morning, I decided to go with the “direct watercolor” approach – paint directly and do not do any preliminary drawings or use lines. I think these are more successful than yesterday’s tomatoes – a bit looser and more to my liking. They do seem to float in space a bit, especially the small one on the right.
Sunday was the last quilting class of the year. The goal – add the borders, which you can see in the above image. There was a glitch with them, and I am not sure if it was me or the pattern, but I figured out what to do to make it work. Now, this is set aside until January 2019 when the last classes on the steps to apply batting, backing, and binding are held. I’m rather pleased with it, can see where I have improved, and see where I need to figure out subtle refinements a bit more. I learned a lot over the last 5 weeks, and am looking forward to the final processes to a finished quilt.
Now – Christmas sewing! And pants hemming, over which I am hawing . . . 😉
I have been busy sewing for the holidays, as well as busy with appointments. Watercolor has fallen to the wayside – but not forgotten! Today, before I head out for a sewing class, I decided I wanted to work on white space, such as highlights, without using frisket. I took some tomatoes, set them on my desk (which has an acrylic protective surface), and painted. Here ya go!
Reds are actually a challenge as there are subtleties between the different areas. The same with the yellows of the cherry tomatoes. I decided to use the complimentary colors to create the shadows within the tomatoes themselves, but used blue for cast shadows in one, and tried to imitate the reflective cast shadows in the other painting, trying to replicate the tomatoes on the shiny acrylic surface.
This is the quilt top, all put together as of noon today! This is just the top – next Sunday is the border, and then wait until the second class begins sometime next year. That is when we will add the batting and the back side of the quilt. And do the binding. And, I assume, the quilting. It feels pretty good to be at this point in the quilt, let me tell you!
And, in the middle of all this excitement, my foot wrapped around the cord to my iron – one I have had for 20 years at least and really like – pulled the iron off the counter, and it shattered into a billion pieces of plastic. “It’s dead, Jim,” to quote someone. Luckily, I had another iron, older than that one, as back up.
Sacrifices must be made, I guess. The sewing gods are jealous gods . . .
Ink, Yarn & Beer 