Sidetracked (Europe 2 - Paris)

     Once a month I meet up with a fabulous group of creative women ... and each time I come away having learned something new, something old with new applications or even something extra that enhances a skill that needs more practice.


     So yesterday we learned something new: one of our talented ladies (Linda F) showed us how to create and bind a book.  It is 18 cm X 24 cm (approx 7" X 10 " )

     The pages are fairly thick ... strong enough for water colour painting. I have 30 pages in this book. I wouldn't mind trying again but with thinner pages, more suitable for writing.

     I also worked on a dress for Charlotte ... she wasn't so keen on it when she first tried it on, but I am hoping that now the warmer weather has arrived, it will be more suitable to wear. I picked up the fabric while in Holland the end of April.

     And finally, I am working on some ideas for my Europe quilt.
     The first picture, obviously is the Eiffel Tower. It is 38 cm X 22 cm. The background fabric has fusible interfacing which I thought would be enough for all the top-stitching but with the additional work as I proceeded down the tower, I think I should have used two layers of the interfacing to help stop the wrinkling. I can probably get it to lie flat once I quilt it. I haven't decided how many pictures I am going to include from my trip ... nor how big the quilt will eventually be. 

     There are several photos I have taken that I think I may create as single / separate pieces. Time will tell!

Woo Hoo Colour Challenge!

     Many months ago I started a colour challenge with our FAB group (Fibre Arts Bee) ... and for the most part, I have been plugging away at it, but whenever I wanted to work on new projects (like the Europe quilt), I knew I should work on the colour pieces and get that out of the way.

     For the original piece, my daughter Kate used a photo from St Johns, Newfoundland, enlarged & printed it in black & white (so I wouldn't know the original colours) and then separated it into 9 pieces. (I've taped the pieces here; you can almost make out where the cuts are)

     One piece was randomly chosen each month and the colour challenge was applied.  Since I did not know ahead of time (until near the end) which piece would fit where, there was an extra challenge in choosing colours that would help each section to stand out.

     Here is the final piece ... had a little difficulty in lining up the pieces while trying to pin them to the deck fence ... it was a wee bit windy out. When I put the mini-quilts together, I realized that there were some areas that needed a touch more work ... for example, one of the power lines stopped mid-picture. That is now fixed but I am thinking that a few more finishing details could probably be added, like the house numbers. 

     Hopefully as I do the individual close-ups, I will remember which Colour Challenge it represents.
1. Complementary ... opposite on the colour wheel.
Blues & Oranges

2. Analogous ... adjacent to each other
Green / Yellow-green / Yellow 
(probably my favourite section ... I had a little more energy at the beginning to add extra details, not sure what the extra dark spot is on the left window ... did a bug land while I was taking pictures?)

3. Triadic ... evenly spaced on colour wheel
Red - Blue - Yellow
 (interesting ... there is that dark spot again ... will have to take some new photos later)

4. Tetradic .... two sets of complementary
 Yellow / Violet & Red / Green
 (This is probably my 2nd favourite piece ... I prefer working on the extra detail to give some realism to the picture)

5. Split Complementary ... a dominant colour &  2 colours adjacent to complementary colour
Yellow Green with Red & Violet

6. Monochromatic
Oranges 
(This piece was actually chosen for triadic, but without any buildings to use for contrast, I jumped ahead and made it one colour.) When I did the overall quilting of the sky, I realized that the other pieces with bits of sky in them would also need similar quilting.

7. Achromatic .... no colour
Black, White, Grey

8. High / Low Contrast (Temperature contrast of warm / cool)
warm Yellow with cool Blue-Violet 
(wasn't too crazy about this piece ... I like the sections that give more detail, and for me, more interest; the original has a house number above the door, so I may add that.  The siding on the house is actually pleated)

9. Full Colour
Red / Orange / Yellow / Green / Blue / Violet 
(Again, house numbers would probably help. The picture does not show a front step for each of the houses, but I may add one; the red door looks like it is floating. It took a bit of finessing to make sure the lines for the power boxes matched with the section above.)

I am noticing a dark spot near the edge of several of the pictures ... perhaps it isn't a bug but rather time to clean the camera lens!!