Thursday, May 15, 2008

TIF May: The Colors and Inspiration

Once again, I am calling myself "a grateful artist" - to Allison Aller for being my mentor in this crazy quilt thing - I have been motivated and inspired by her work for way over a year - and have done some of my best needlepoint design in the attempt to "replicate" her art crazies. I've been involved in other designwork in the last few months, but have really missed playing around with the CQ - so this one started with the colors for May, which remind me of morning glories and other spring flowers - and then I saw her little picture of what we call in Texas the "Evening Primrose" - an indigenous wildflower, which a few weeks ago looked like a pink blanket all over every yard and field around Austin. I took the picture this afternoon in my daughter's back yard - but the flowers are fading, besides having been hit last night with quite an unusual storm - even hail! Anyway - to start such a project, I was able to make an excursion to the local needlpoint shop to pick out threads (which I never mind doing) - but also had a few in my stash. I have ordered some 7mm silk ribbon in both the morning glory color and the primrose pink - but meanwhile, this is what I have for starters - both new and from my formidable stash. Incidentally, if you haven't seen this gorgeous ribbon - look at the Riversilks site! To start, I drew the heart on canvas, but haven't yet marked off the "patches," as I have to play around with drawings on paper first to get the best arrangement of the elements. I'm thinking, at this point, that it will have to be larger than the heart I drew, as I want to include many of the charming elements of this crazy quilt patch - with it's leaves included! - so stay tuned! Hopefully this will be a good one. I'm sure I will thoroughly enjoy the stitching of it, and am grateful once again to the "crazy quilt" community for the eye candy I see each morning as I cruise the blogs to get my brain primed for design in needlepoint. BTW - I did, of course, buy some new beads, but didn't include them in the picture. They are little "pearl" seed beads, which just seemed right for this. I really really like the orange leaves, and will most likely include them, as I believe they are necessary for the color scheme - but am not sure at this point how that will be handled - or what thread or stitch will be used.

2 comments:

Judy S. said...

Hi Judy,

We're just back from Chicago and spring arrived while we were gone, so there's lots of yardwork waiting! I love the way your Acoma pottery canvas turned out, and this one will be wonderful also. I like reading Allie's blog, too; she is SO creative! (And you are, too!)

NCPat said...

I love the colors....patiently waiting to see wht you do!