Color Drenched ….

It seems as if I've never met a quilting method I didn't like. Our Fiber Art Bee recently had the chance to try out colored pencils on a quilted design. Our instructor and long-arm quilter Kim Hart prepared the quilted squares and provided the colored pencils and textile medium we needed to set the colors. We then began to “color inside the lines” as in our old coloring book days. It’s quite a relaxing process, and I set up a tray table so I could complete the project in the evening when watching tv. Once completed, I made this pillow from the quilted and colored square.




In order to deepen, blend and shade colors, I needed to go over areas more than once. Some members brought their own Prismacolor pencils or Inktense ones that gave less of a pastel look to their projects. But most of us used standard hard lead colored pencils which work nicely.



Kim used green thread for the quilting so it was easy to define where we wanted to add color. She also offered hummingbird and floral design options, shown below.



This is Kim’s tote bag which she used as a sample when teaching another class in this technique.



My neighbor at the work table was quite adept at shading her flowers, and achieved nice color intensity. So pretty!




Here are two more of Kim’s class sample projects. This method was lots of fun, and I can see some uses for it in future projects.



And speaking of color-drenched, we just returned from a trip to Arizona where the desert was in bloom. It was just lovely. We’ve visited before, but are usually just ahead of the bloom. Between the pollen and the dust, allergies bloomed, too! We traveled to Prescott where we stopped at Watson Lake to see the wonderful granite formations (below) and the Phippen Museum of Western Art.



And we stayed in beautiful Sedona. Because this trip was a belated celebration gift for our 50th wedding anniversary, we treated ourselves to a stay at the lovely Enchantment Resort set right within the red rocks. Just magnificent!






We never made the adjustment from Eastern time to Arizona time which is three hours earlier. That meant that we were up at 5:30 AM to capture this lovely early morning sky showing the last of the moon and the beginning of sunrise. I also had the 24-hour hot tub all to myself at sunrise. What a treat it was to watch the sun come up on the red rocks in the chill morning air.




Good food is always a plus on a trip, and this delicious grilled scallop plate was my lunch at Renee’s of Tlaquepaque in Sedona. We had a grand time, and now we’re catching up at home, both feeling grateful for our wonderful time away.