Sewing and Doodling

When I'm not very focused on any specific project I resort to finishing up something from my collection of already sewn quilt blocks. Two benefits to this, I get to check something off my list of things to do as completed and I don't have to think too hard. I just sew.

Small and mini quilts I finished in May:

When I'm not sewing I'm just doodling or painting something abstract. I think the doodling and abstractedness is all a reflection of my unfocus. 

Well, this turned out strange, a collage of nothing and everything. This collage never looked finished to me and I didn't have a clear direction I was going with so I just kept writing various symbolic information on it until I got tired of doing that.

Thanks for reading. 

Aileen

Christmas Art

For the last couple years I have been trying to do some kind of artwork with a Christmas theme to use on the yearly Christmas card.  The artwork is also usually a reflection of the type of art I have been doing that year. It could be paper collage, fabric collage, digital art or something else.  This year I have been doing or doodling with watercolor and topographic lines or drawn patterns so I started to try to create something along those lines with a Christmas theme.

These are some of the practice pieces I have been working on:

They were not coming out the way I imagined but they are interesting and I still have a couple more to work on just for the fun of it.

I also though about a doing a tribal design for the tree drawing:

I also think this design could be used to create an interesting Christmas quilt.

But in the end I decided to go with a simple splattered watercolor Christmas tree 

and I digitally enhanced it some in PSE13 after scanning it.  

I even found a cool paint splatter font to use for the text.

 

Thanks for reading.

Aileen

Odd Projects

I've just been working on a few small things. 

I wanted to feel like I was getting something done so I machine quilted this little scrap quilt.  I guess that's the plus side of having a pile of unfinished projects.

And, of course had it Cat approved. Thanks Cassandra.

 And did some more topographic line doodles.  It's sort of meditative and easy to sit a couple minutes, often talking to someone, and just draw lines. Hills, valleys, lakes, rivers, mountains, shorelines, islands, cliffs and whatever I imagine.

This is another of the pearl cotton hand quilted pieces I work on when I'm watching TV.  I finished the edges of this small piece and plan to use it as the cover for a small book.

And this is the 'ugly' experiment completed.  I wanted to try a 'stack and slash' patchwork technique but didn't want to use any of my 'favorite' fabrics on something I might not like so I picked out of my stash 6 of my least liked fabrics, the 'uglies'.  I've see some really impressive and attractive stack and slash quilts and it looks like a fun technique to use but I didn't find it to be any less work really and the end results don't make me happy.  My vision/brain craves at least order and loves some symmetry with that and it would be nice if my favorite colors were involved. Maybe this wasn't a good test. If I liked the colors and prints in the quilt I might be able to overlook the disorder of the whole object.  Maybe.

This is one of our sleepy bees hanging out under the marigolds overnight. With their help I'll have all the seeds I need for flowers next year.

Thanks for reading.

Aileen