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August 24, 2025
creatively speaking this week, dragonfly blocks a bike and yet another hexie project from Not Afraid of Color

 

here we are again, to chat about living the creative life, and share a love for color! 

This week I've been using AQUA (and all it's tones) scraps to make dragonflies!! 

I have them on top of a batik on the design wall but do not know for sure what I want to do with them
I made 3 --12" blocks, and 6  ---- 6" blocks. The pattern is a free one from Moda. 

pattern source: MODA
I believe ironing the batks was what caused all my migraines. Oh I prewash all batiks 3 times in hot water, but ...

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August 2, 2025
creatively speaking.... this week was Aqua-full from Not Afraid of Color

 

The color of the month for Rainbow Scrap challenge is Aqua....  LOVE!! One of my very favorite colors if you include aqua (more pastel) all the way to dark turquoise. 

I like contrast mostly so I usually include all values of a color when I make something

Above I showed some of the prepped hexies on their way to this month's block

started with looking through the turquoise scrap bin and choosing these fabrics

7 of one color, and 6 of the rest, all cut about 2.5" to baste around the templates for hand sewing

It's laid ...

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July 26, 2025
creatively speaking, this week Challenge met! The butterfly house from Not Afraid of Color

 

I finished the Table Scraps challenge for this month, to use purple scraps and interpret the word blossoms (English country garden)   I call it the butterfly house!
I went to the Denver Botanical Gardens butterfly house one year and it's magical! 

It started like most of my scraps color of the month pieces start, take out the smallest scraps and start sewing them to each other. This time I started with that dragonfly fabric and had 3 scraps. I had no plan. 

As I sewed I was thinking floral strips, pretty fabrics, I sewed 3 60 deg triangles together ...

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July 12, 2025
creatively speaking, this week Purple Haze from Not Afraid of Color

 

I spent my studio time this week with these projects plus a few more. 

All in the various ranges of purples, blue-purples to red-purples from light to dark. 

I do love scraps and am grateful to my friends who sent me scraps to give me choices to use

I did three blocks for my rainbow scrap challenge quilt this week

each strip is 2.5" across width of fabric, and each one is pretty

I thought this was just okay til I noticed the gold hearts!


these might be the 4th block...

I walk a lot, and try to notice ...

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June 21, 2025
creatively speaking this week... spirals, painting challenge, machine choice, Spring Green, COLORS! from Not Afraid of Color

 

I've been progressing on each project this week. Each step teaches me, each color excites me, art is healing

Above is my rainbow scrap challenge block this year, a hexie spiral. Hand stitched with small scraps from my orange collection. So satisfying when it is done.... here are the colors completed so far
just blocks lying next to each other
The Index Card a Day challenge is on, I'm woefully behind but have now done several. We use the prompts to create something each day....
"Spring"   "Cobalt"  "Iguana" 

Love how the paints blended in the petals

drawn from ...

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June 14, 2025
creatively speaking this week: drawing, painting, and sewing from Not Afraid of Color

 

I have just a few things to share with you this week starting with one of my two rainbow scrap challenge blocks this year. The color focus is on orange scraps this month, and using them.

I chose 4 duos this week, cut them into 2.5" strips, sewed cut sewed cut sewed them into blocks of orange

Orange covers a large spectrum of color, from yellow orange to pink orange (coral)
I tried to blend some as they will not be together in the final quilt top, but mixed in with all the other colors. 
Orange makes a quilt ...

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May 31, 2025
creatively speaking--- watching paint dry, a quilt grows on the design wall, learning from others from Not Afraid of Color

 

This was a full week of creation, inspiration from color outside, inspiration from a stitch workshop, morning color work in paint, and seeing my green quilt top growing like seedlings outside.

In using scrap fabrics, I am open to possibility. How would one look against the others? I love this gentle block, but each pretty fabric plays off the others... it's one of many components now done, on the wall, waiting for a design to grow.
some detail shots
reminding myself I can insert raw edge applique anywhere 

reminding myself I can insert lines anywhere


choosing textures to set ...

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May 24, 2025
Creatively speaking, watching paint dry, sewing, and inspiration from Not Afraid of Color


not as much to show for this week, as I made a big push to finish the workshop lessons, if not the art! 
I was inspired to paint a hibiscus shared on Cloudia in Hawaii's post last week.... not realistic but kind of impressionistic
I like the color of blue, against the lime leaves

inspiration in bloom.... one of our bushes
Flowers on my mind as I try to paint a border of them around a picture... I'll show when it's done

Starting with paint, paper and ink this week, sewing fiber work next
morning doodles was ...

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May 17, 2025
creatively speaking, an owl, a flower, a moon, and some stitching from Not Afraid of Color

 

for this week's creativity round up I'll start with the spiral hexie blocks

are you tired of seeing the progression of these yet LOL? Each color is a project on it's own. 36 hexies in one colorway, light to dark, hand basted and sewn. I have no idea how I'll fit all the colors together 

I focused on mixed media with all it's layers and supplies and variety this week. I also took time each day to sew as I need the fabric time, seeing colors joined with threads. 

Note I just cleaned my reading ...

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May 10, 2025
Living a creative life paintings, fabric art photo inspiration from Not Afraid of Color

 

For this week's creativity round up I start with 2" scraps of fabric... oh it's not done, it's just a start using pieces cut off (then resewn) a larger scrap project. The eye scrap came from a friend in Maryland who used that fabric to sew scrubs for her nurse brother, then she gave me the cuts from that. 

years ago now
no piece seems to be too small to throw away when you see potential in the everyday
I was inspired this week by the Eagles I watch,  sitting in front of a mighty background
made ...

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May 3, 2025
creatively speaking this week.... watching paint dry, and progress on sewing projects from Not Afraid of Color

 

My focus on art this week (shared with doctor visits) was split between fabric and watching paint dry, along with some planning of my embroidery project. 

The color of the month at rainbow scrap challenge is green not blue but I'm catching up on scrap colors so I did another hexie spiral in blues...

Green showed up in a small portrait painted in my scrap paper art journal though

using leftover gouache paint

yogurt lid palette holds the paint for days. Look at the lovely mixing of color on the lighter blue/purple bit. You see that on the ...

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April 12, 2025
Creativity this week charm pack quilt, Improv sewing in red and 3 little paintings from Not Afraid of Color

 

Very little as satisfying as watching paint dry.... welcome to this week's creativity round-up 

I'll start with the color of the month at rainbow scrap challenge, Red:

box of RED scraps
I eased into this color by pulling the really little scraps and sewing them together, watching the pattern show up, watching the colors blend, 
sewing one little section to another til I had two major sections to fit together into this...
about 18" X 13" 

my improv work lately looks like houses or cityscapes to me
Little doggie peeking out an upstairs window

I start by arranging ...

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April 5, 2025
Creatively this week.... a quilt finish, two paintings (& two works in progress) from Not Afraid of Color

 

welcome to this week's round up of creativity starting with one of my design wall works in progress. The color of April's scrap challenge is teal, and I include turquoise and aqua in for myself.
 (This just in, the color of April now is red, oy vey!)

I love this background fabric, it's been in my stash for years. I think I'll use it instead of the ones originally chosen to border it. Also on the wall is this embroidery piece:

with another favorite background fabric. It seems to need some space so maybe larger borders ...

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March 15, 2025
my creative week from Not Afraid of Color

it's about 18.5"  X  23" at this point, with about 20 blocks

 

this creativity post is brought to you by the color yellow (thank you Rainbow scrap challenge)

and  the magic of little scraps of fabric! 

I even have three paintings using yellow, and my latest purchase to show you so let's get this started!
 With the purchase! 
three bundles of hand dyed cherrywood fabrics, (Hobbyhouseneedleworks had them for a good price) 

while I was getting more fabric to pet, I also got a beading kit (palette pin) two yummy hand dyed embroidery floss colors from Weeks ...

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March 3, 2025
My creative week spent sewing on my round robin quilt from Not Afraid of Color


I spent my creative time this week in my wee studio, adding to my Stay at home Round Robin quilt

the prompt was Kite blocks... I started with a search online to see them, and for my whimsical house piece decided to make them look like kites, and used blue sky scraps (Thanks, RSC!) plus scrap triangles from feedsack fabrics

I did them improvisationally. cut a rectangle from a blue scrap, then cut that in half on an angle both directions. Now to add a triangle that meets on the tips after sewing
did that on all four corners ...

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February 22, 2025
my creative week -- SAHRR, PQ and RSC (acronyms week) from Not Afraid of Color

 

Welcome to this week's creativity round-up! I have four projects to share this week so on with the show!

Starting with project quilting's prompt, "inspired by your birthstone color" For me it's 

"emerald"


I started with collecting inspiration photos online, and printing them onto one sheet of paper. 

see the images printed out there on the table?

if I had more than one week for this (and didn't start 4 days in! lol) I might have done the emerald city, or a palm frond. I cut out 3 paper hearts, taped them together, and cut the ...

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February 16, 2025
my creative week including embroidery, sewing piecework, and a painting from Not Afraid of Color

 

still trying to live a creative life, and this is a mention of this week's work... glad you're here! 

the pic above is my latest finished embroidery. I learned to make tassel flowers, very wild and 3-d

more about the embroidery in a minute, but first my stay at home round robin nest row was slice into a block and insert a new fabric. It was a hard pain week so I took it easy on the creative front. I did a sliced insert in an X thinking it would look like a trellis... well.... 

it's too ...

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January 25, 2025
Creativity this week... two challenges met and knitting socks from Not Afraid of Color

 

Project Quilting prompt for this week was "ombre" which is a shift from one color to the another. 

I am knitting socks with an ombre affect at the moment. Purple to turquoise

two of my favorite colors! I like to put my own spin on a prompt so I thought I'd graduate from purple to turquoise with fabric PRINTS instead of solids. I wanted to make something I could use too, so an older pattern for a "keeper" fit the need

Now I have a non Christmas colored keeper to hold sock projects in the family room


I arranged ...

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January 18, 2025
my creative week stitching, knitting, hand embroidery framed with quilting from Not Afraid of Color

 

I'm between prompts on SAHRR and PQ, so I sorted and cleaned up the studio (when it's small that's very important to do)  The above image is the hand embroidery I finished a week ago, up on the design wall

the color of the month at the rainbow scrap challenge is pink, (love...! ) 
the pink scrap bin held some tiny triangles which I freely stitched higgeldy piggeldy into the strip on the right
and I sorted through my collection of 2" squares for the rest of the border

for ones in lighter tones of green/pink/blue ...

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December 14, 2024
My creative week in threads from Not Afraid of Color

 

This is the 12th block in this pattern for this year's RSC quilt to be. 

I chose a warm color, a healing color is pink, and this time more intense shades of pink. 

I don't know if it's "raspberry" or just saturated pinks originally I thought maroon or cranberry. 

I do like to play with all variations of a color... here are three warm colors together to compare

intense pink, bright pink, and red. Note I've tried to keep a dotted theme this year for the hexies. I love focusing on a color each month and ...

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