Now came my favorite part……adding color!!  Since it was MLK day and an official holiday, I decided (at my husband’s urging) to take the day off from work and spend it in the studio!!

I first pulled all of my green fabrics that seemed appropriate….

but alas, there wasn’t an appropriate fabric for the dark background that I was envisioning.

So, I went shopping!!  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find what I needed in the chain stores and our local shop has now closed (BOO), so I moved on to plan B.  A phone call to Anita told me that she had appropriate greens in stock so I headed for a little shopping on her shelves, and came home with these….

…..AREN’T THEY GORGEOUS!!!!

The fabric that I had chosen for the background wasn’t quite big enough…exactly 4 inches short on one side so I picked another fabric (after many changes) and added uneven borders on the sides…..

….sorry the colors in the photo are not good.

Next I drew the bamboo poles onto freezer paper and got ready to iron onto the selected fabric.  Unfortunately the fabric wasn’t long enough to make the entire stem so I glued the pieces together, making sure to place them in areas where there will be additional thread work…. I cut out the pieces….

….added a few leaves and voila….. Next came the rubber plant…..

Some funky leaves……

and I am out of time for the day, but it sure was a FUN one!!!

This should be good incentive to work hard and fast this next week so that I can get back to this project!!!

On Sunday, I decided to get a good start on my Challenge so I cleaned off the design wall, including removing all of the strings…..

Next was to mark out the mandatory 40 inch square  (I learned this simple technique from Elizabeth Barton)….. WOW….does that look like a lot of empty space!!!!

OK, now to put something on the wall.

I will be the first to tell you that I CANNOT draw, but I do know how to use the available technology and that is exactly what I did.

First I scanned the drawings that I showed on yesterday’s blog, selected the plant that I wanted and printed it out using the poster function on my printer (the larger pieces were printed on the 3×3 format)….

I started with the rubber plant…..

….and look, the size doesn’t look so vast.

Next came the bamboo……

….but not side by side.   How about overlayed….. ….Better…..

Now to add some other funky leaves (after I used the photocopier to make smaller and larger versions of them)……

….Looking good….lets add a few ferns and maybe a few large leaves…

Hmmmmm….it’s looking pretty good.  I bet that I can fill it in with other smaller leaves.

Next step….fabric!!!!

OK…for the last few weeks months, I have been complaining on this blog about not feeling creative and not having any motivation to work in my studio.

It seems that all it took was a good challenge!!! 

My quilt guild has issued a “Complement Me” challenge where we are to use two different techniques and two complementary colors.  The size has to be 40 inches square.  Oh, by the way, it is due in 3 weeks!!!

I have spent the last 4 months lazily thinking about the quilt, but decided to get down to business last week.   My first step was to search the internet for inspirational photos.  I started by searching “purple and yellow” and found a wonderful purple daisy that would have leant itself to beading, but the size was just too big.  Then I found a green and red tree frog but the problem remained the same…..40 inches was just too big for the subject.

However, this got me to thinking about rainforests and the photos that I had taken in China and the ideas just started flowing.  I spent the next few days searching the internet for pictures of rainforest plants and leaves.

After I had collected and printed a good number of them, I started tracing out the ones that appealed to me.  To do this, I used a piece of transparency film and a fine point sharpie. 

Here are the resulting sheets…….

 

 

Also this week, I have been reading a new book that I purchased a few weeks ago….

In this wonderful book, she talks about making a quilt based on a photo and talks about three different forms of applique. 

The first is turned edge……no way  (especially not in three weeks time)!!!! 

The second is fused edges…..been there, done that!!!!

The third was raw edge …..definite possibility!!!

Her technique for raw edge is to draw the design on freezer paper, iron it to the front side of the fabric, cut out along the lines, remove the freezer paper and have the perfect shaped piece ready to glue to your backing fabric…..interesting!!!

……more to come……