New Succulent Plants

There is a garden in the neighborhood with the most amazingly beautiful succulent garden. I stopped there today, because there was a plant sale in progress. I bought five dollars worth of succulent plants which would rival any nursery succulents I've seen. They will be a welcome addition to my garden, and should add nice variety to my succulent series.

ATC's are finished

I've finished my Artist Trading Cards for next weekend. I like these work better as smaller pieces than I did as the one large piece it was a couple of days ago.

Transforming a Rejected Succulent

Quite a while ago, I began a succulent for the SAQA Auction, and then set it aside as a reject. I cut it into rough squares a couple months ago, with the intention of completing the Fast Friday Challenge which was supposed to be based on grids with an accent color. I picked out the fabric for the accent color, but then couldn't satisfy myself with the final arrangement, and it got set aside again. This months Fast Friday challenge is to work with pattern or texture and triad color scheme. My rejected project was already the right colors. I sewed the squares together at random, quilted, and then used orange and white paints to bring out the texture and add some dimension. Then I cut it apart again, and inserted orange veins. This was a fun experiment. The current plan is to cut this into trading card size pieces to swap at my next CQFA meeting.

Succulent VI

12 x 12
This is my piece for the One Foot Square SAQA Benefit Auction. I started with a piece of hand dyed fabric with blended turquoise, green and yellow.

I really should get some more photos to base my succulents on. I keep reusing the same favorites and doing them in different colors. Then again, why not repeat a good thing until I tire of it.

Neutral Challenge

"Succulent V"
11 x 9

My fabric has been luring me to get back to some creative quilting. This month’s Fast Friday challenge was to work with neutral colors. I wondered if I could do succulents in neutral colors without them looking dead. Cynthia did a wonderful landscape in blue tinted grays which made it look like it was drenched in moonlight, so I thought maybe a blue tinted gray would work for me as well.

This piece started with a bluish gray which now seems nearly achromatic. I added a bit of yellow to the final painted highlights to add a bit of warmth to it. I prefer the brightly colored succulents.

I will post the piece I am making for the SAQA auction tomorrow.

Color Matters

I am making progress on building the Piecmakers website. I wasn't confident with the colors I had chosen to work with. So I decided to create several mockups with differing color schemes. I will then poll the Piecemaker members, and let them choose our website colors.

In my search for palette inspiration, I came across COLOURlovers which is a great website for anyone who loves working with color.

I really like their COPASO tool, which allows me to upload a photo, and then pull colors from it to create a new palette.

I have several palettes on COLORlovers now. Next week I will pick a few of the palettes and begin working on the website mockups. Which are your favorites which you think would be good colors for the website?

This week I need to finish getting my work ready for the show at San Leandro History Museum & Art Gallery. And I need to sew a pioneer dress & bonnet for my daughter to wear in the Rowell Ranch Rodeo parade this weekend on the school float.

April Happenings

I've been taking a bit of a break from creating new textile pieces.

My current focus has been on updating my programming and web design skills to make myself more marketable in the job market.

I have been learning Java programming, and have been updating my HTML and CSS skills. My current project is redesigning and building from scratch the website for the Piecemakers Quilt Guild. This work in progress can be viewed here: http://www.piecemakersguild.org/new. I still have a lot to do loading content, and fine tuning the layout.

To make my post quilting related, I have two pieces juried into the "Images of California" art show at the San Leandro History Museum and Art Gallery:

320 W. Estudillo Avenue, San Leandro, California
May 14 to Saturday, June 27
Artist Reception: Saturday, May 16 from 1:00 am - 3:00 pm
Thursday through Sunday, 11:00 am to 3:00 pm