Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Pink Bouquet

Allie asked "What is that gorgeous pink bouquet wallhanging you have on the design wall? Looks yummy....." so I thought I'd give you a closer view.

Flowers

Before moving to Arizona I had started a very interesting class given by
Heather Thomas at a quilt shop in Boulder, Colorado. The class was called "The Language of Color and Design" and it was great... at least the first two months were. I ended up making a quick move to Phoenix and couldn't finish the class... bummer! Anyway, it is designed as a year long exploration of color and she still teaches it at various quilt shops throughout Colorado. This piece was made in August '04 as a monochromatic scheme for the second class in the series. I chose red-violet and used a piece of fabric I'd had forever as the background, another as the table mat, then I raided my stash of upholstery samples for everything else. It was great fun until I tried to do some embellishing. In my novice state I had used a VERY heavy fusible interfacing and it was nearly impossible to get the needle through the fabrics and the interfacing. I did the bare minimum and just kind of left it where it was; however, this may very well have been my first "crazy quilt" adventure. Of course it's not really a crazy quilt, but it did use bits and pieces of fabric, thread and beads so in my book, it was pretty close to CQ! ;0)

Here are a couple of closeups for your viewing pleasure:
Flowers - close-up
and
Flowers - close-up 2

I should probably do something with it but I don't know what. Further investigation should probably be my next course, especially since my creative muse seems to have left the building. I tried to do some Christmas sewing last weekend and all I managed to do was cut out a couple of Christmas stockings. It was very sad, I must say. Hopefully, this weekend will be better!

For those of you into other fiber arts, here is a beginning spinner's prize pack I won on Norma's blog. See, before I found all you lovely quilting ladies, I found the knitters, they hooked me on blogs and I still visit quite a few of them. So here we have a Bosworth midi spindle, 4 oz of Merino Swirl roving, 8 oz of white cormo roving and 4 oz of Bluefaced Leicester in a lovely dark colorway called Walk at Midnight.
Bosworth spindle & roving from Norma 11-2008
Pretty, yes? I was trying to find something to corral all of this when my Bag of Fun caught my eye... perfect!!
Bosworth spindle & roving in bag 11-2008
Now, all I have to do is learn to spin!!! ;0)

8 comments:

Debra Dixon said...

Allie is right! It is Yummy!

I believe you could do a pretty quick finish on it and then enjoy it somewhere other than your design wall.

Susan Elliott said...

Thank you Allie for asking the question! That is just beautiful and the palette is right up my alley...I would love to take a class like that.

I'm interested in your spinning trial and your bag of fun is rockin' it.

Rissa said...

Oh, have fun learning to spin! The bosworth spindles are GREAT!

allie aller said...

Marty, thanks so much for more detail on your Pink Bouquet. Heck, all it needs is some binding...or you could "envelope it" and be done.

How fun to play with the flowers like that. I used to make flower collages too, and it has been far too long...maybe the next time I feel like playing hooky...

Love your Bag O'Fun purse!!!

Anonymous said...

Isn't that the stuff use for needle felting? Maybe that would be something to do instead of spinning. =) Love the bag you chose for holding it all.

The flower piece is quite pretty. Turn it into a wall hanging? You didn't mention how big it is, so is it small enough to be on the side of a tote bag? Love your embellishments.

Anonymous said...

Spinning? Oh no, a whole new world to discover! Yikes! Hey, the tote bag is totally cool!

Threadspider said...

Lovely to catch up with you and very envious of the fleece. I have spun Blue faced Leicester-it's so gorgeous, but on a wheel not a spindle. It's a good occupation for cooler days.
The pink bouquet is beautiful.

Candi said...

It's beautiful! Thanks for sharing!
hugz:)
Candi