let's sing some pumpkin carols....

 Two little flat pumpkin pins made of painted fabric

 and using a rolled fabric stem and a twig from the yard

 no doubt a bougainvillea clipping,

 now i use repurposed chopsticks  parts,

 stained a brown color for stems.

 made from halloween fabric

  mini pants 

 to dance in if you are a tiny dancer!

We had an etch and sketch feature on our first computer 

so i made this greeting inspired by

Charlie Brown's  seasonal cartoon 

 where he searches for the most sincerely pumpkin in the patch.

As a vintage child, I like to watch each year.
the cat peeking over the top is mz Ivy. 

Orange to mango and  sunny greens, colored fabric laying about

trimming left over  from a mango inspired quilt

a block of  which is shown above 

now lives on in a pair of  stuffed pumpkin.

They become more dear

each year, 

as my hands start to ache with too much holding, stitching, and stuffing

Must be time to get out the  unscented Bengay, Salonpas, or cbd salve

and go read a book!

 happy time of pumpkins to you all

 and 

try not  eat  all  the  candy  corn !

Be well, Sonja

sending an October sunset your way

  

pumpkin colors

Well i have been making and painting and sewing and quilting and  taking some photos when i make some progress. The excess humidity has rendered me lazy and lethargic and prone to wishing for naps for sometime. i finally am getting close to the finish of a mango inspired quilt, a little quiltie!

i have had the blocks pinned to a design board for most of the year.

if you have visited this blog before you might recall i am a painter of bland vanilla colored cotton fabric, turning it in to ALL the colors of the rainbow and saving the scraps and bits from previous work.

scrape pile of possibilities....

sewing random pieces and strips into squares is soothing

yummy threads to sew with!

Bernina  830 Record   hums along

 trimmed up 

 waiting for paint to dry......

 i painted  mangoish color on white background fabric 

for binding.in humid times it takes longer.

While waiting for paint to dry, made a few little guys,

i can use for pin cushions or just for fun.

(if you Google fabric pumpkin pin cushions you will find a ton of tuts.)

mine start with a circle of fabric.

Back in 1976

i had the fun of making this little slightly astigmatic pumpkin jack o lantern

from clay.  I am thankful he has survived this long!

Voltive candles from the drugstore are his favorite  food  to burn.

Have a great pumpkin day!

Be well, Sonja

linking up with

Nina Marie at Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever by Nina-Marie Sayre

Pumpkin painting people

Hello  October  Pumpkin  lovers!

Some autumnal  color for you!

pumpkin colored October sunset close up 

 why are these fine ladies smiling under a shady tree?? (see below)

they just painted up a patch/batch of pumpkins on fabric about the size of a postcard. i asked  them to make several after we practiced a bit of sketching on paper to loosen up. 

 they made some  to send and  some to keep .

 (even if folks don't sew one can always glue the

small original painting

 onto a card stock to make a greeting card ) 

 we also made sunsets on water and mountains and got more paint on fabric squares  than on our clothes. 

I love to demo and in doing so usually get the most paint on myself.  

oh,  i don't mind as  it eventually washes off my skin and i do wear painting clothes to class,well usually. it takes about a year to get a shirt painted good and i help it out by  often wiping my paint brushes directly on my shirt in class. 

 Erin,  Beth,  Heather,  Becky, and Aliea  shine!   

             

           a palette, a yogurt lid really, with paint on it will be applied to fabric  soon as i wind down.

after the painting class leaves,

i like to clean up the left behind paint onto pieces of fabric close at hand.

below are a few sections of cloth left to dry.

tomorrow i will iron them flat and eventually wash/iron them as i design, play, quilt and collage with these random colored cloth bits.

art cloth in the making, step one ..... above

 ironed flat fabric of  many colors to ready to inspire

After a painting session,  i wash my brushes and then let them dry flat on table before stashing them upright again

 in jars or cups for storage. 

i have some  brushes that are 30 plus years old that i still reach for!

my favorite paint to use on fabric is a screen printing inks by Versatex,

i have used these  for many decades and love them much .

i get them from dharmatrading.com

 bushes come from dick blick , my favorite one is the angled shader brush .

and i 

found one more use for my painted and clean up coffee filters.( some  colorful filters are shown in the previous Pear  Blossom post.)

 this time i did a little gathering stitch around the circumference , gathering it up with care, stuffed it with a bit of fluff, cinched closed after  inserting a  dried stem from an avocado dipped in a bit of glue. a scrap of green fabric cut in leaf shape slipped over stem and let dry.  paint more color onto finished pumpkin if you like.  might take some of that fabric of random colors and make some more. i usually make them out of fabric but that coffee filter said...pick me! and it worked!