A Little Bouquet

As usual, my thoughts and ideas for this theme challenge were all over the place, but I finally settled on using this image as inspiration. 

 This is a favorite coffee shop in my city. I enjoy it for the fun latte art (the coffee itself isn't my favorite) and the lovely little floral bouquets at each table. The floral bouquet is the inspiration for my quilt, but the coffee comes into play just a bit, too. 

I decided to challenge myself to see if I could make a little floral bouquet using all circles and squares. It was quite fun, although I had to think a bit on how to incorporate squares! Here's my finished bouquet. 

The blue fabric used for the table is actually an old chambray shirt my husband used to wear. My initial idea for this challenge was to use a larger piece of that shirt and add circles and squares to it. I started by adding coffee rings and was going to stitch around them, but then the rest of that idea just wouldn't settle in. However, I thought having a table with coffee rings was a fun idea (the actual tables at the coffee shop are pristine, in case you were wondering). 

Hopefully you can see those coffee rings in that photo. From there, I built the bouquet, using only circles and squares. The vase is two squares on point, set on top of a half-circle. The bouquet itself is a mix of circles and squares - I just let my imagination run. 

The pieces are all cut freehand. They were stitched to the quilt top using raw edge nachine applique, which got a bit wonky in plaees, but worked out okay enough for me. Rather than using batting for this piece, I used fusible fleece, which I fused to the background before I added the bouquet. Once the bouquet quilting was done, I added the backing to the quilt top and finished with some free motion quilting. It didn't occur to me to do circles and squares in the free motion quilting, so I just practiced a bit of my free hand, which still needs a lot of practice! 

The backing is a scrap piece of blue from my stash, and I had to add a striped binding to add a finishing little pop to the quilt. 

This was a fun challenge for me because I had never tried that free motion quilting around circles. It was a little bit of a challenge at first, but I may have to mess with it a bit more. I always learn some new technique with each challenge. 

Wendy

Emotions: what colour is anxiety?

This was a tricky one.  Emotions themselves are tricky.  I read online somewhere that if you are cranky, short with people, and frustrated with annoyances building up to exlode, then you are not feeling your feelings.  Suppressing and avoidance doesn't work.  Instead we have to recognise, be curious and understanding in order to let emotions come and go.  

After 2 years of Covid with lockdowns, cocooning, not being able to go farther than 5km from your home, pubs and cinemas closed, no visiting friends or family unless in a bubble most of us have not been feeling our feelings, I should think.  

Now that we are opening back up again after Omicron there is naturally a mix of feelings.  While out walking the dogs we got to talking about depicting anxiety as that seems to me the feeling that runs through all of these past years and the return to people mixing freely again.  I pictured anxiety as a dark blue, not black as that's too despairing.  Gordon sees it as purple and that seems spot on too.  

I couldn't find a dark enough purple so ended up with navy thread and tried a technique called neurographic art to depict what I felt about anxiety.  I had been seeing this technique all over YouTube and the way it works is you write what is bothering you or what you want to focus on, on the back of a piece of paper.

Using a wiggly line draw from one side of the page to the other crossing over if you wish.  You can add more lines and more shapes and not take too much time with the lines - about 3 minutes to doodle.  The main thing is to go back to your drawing and round the sharp corners where the lines cross   Then you can add colour to the different areas created by the shapes.

I wondered if this could be done in thread with free motion quilting.  So I thought I'd give it a go and explore anxiety.  I see it as knots in your stomach and a weight pulling you down. To be quick I drew my wiggly lines onto fabric with a frixion pen and then free-motioned over it rounding the corners.  At first I tried to add colour by thread painting but even with stabiliser I was getting some pulling as I hadn't hooped the piece up properly so I thought I'd add some free motion fillers instead. 

I thought this would be where I'd finish it and backed it with this night time fabric because anxious thoughts can wake you up in the middle of the night and keep you awake for hours counting the endless stars.

Then I remembered I had some acrylic paint that I wanted to try on fabric.  These are the only colours I have but luckily I think they go well with the project so far.

 

So I added some paint in the spaces and think this is where I should have left it .  I like the open spaces showing the background fabric through.

But instead I went the whole hog and added in more blue and don't really like it so much.  Oh well, live and learn!

I have to say this was a fun little project even if it was a dark subject.  So anxiety maybe blue or purple but in my world its pink and turquoise too.

The City Park

The theme selected for this quarterly art quilt challenge was "A Walk in the Park."

I had a few ideas from which to choose. I thought of the saying, "It was a walk in the park." Meaning accomplishing something easily. I wasn't sure I wanted to try to easily do this, so I moved on to the next idea. That was a bird's eye view of a park, a map, showing things that one might find in a park. But what type of park? The final choice was to invite the viewers into the park to imagine for themselves what they might find there. I invite you in to the City Park.

This wall hanging measures 18.5" wide by 20.5" high. It is raw edge appliqued, and includes threadwork on the fountain, the benches, and the entrance arch.

I especially liked stitching the water spraying from the fountain.

I used a cording foot (that I've had for years and never used) and Razzle Dazzle thread by Ricky Tims. It adds the watery sparkle to the fountain. I began on the left side with the stitching and, as you can see, got better by the time I got to the right side.

Thank you for visiting and please look at all the members' quilts for this quarterly challenge.