freedombecki
Let's go swimmin'!
- Thread starter
- #2,541
I know what it is. I went stir crazy today winding another bunch of bobbins for my embroidery box. All that's left to do on this box are 5 yellows, 5 oranges, 5 Delft blues, 5 turquoises/aqua and 5 reds. Oh, yes, and 5 more lime greens, since I did the medium greens already. I'm putting a little bit different color groups in each box, but I want enough colors that if I grab and go, there will be enough colors to do whatever is to be embroidered. One box is going to be just southwest colors. That's truly a fun palette, because you pick colors that look like they have to be dusted off a little to be hues. But when you put them together on a beige or neutral ground, their appearance is that of hues if you do not break down and put a hue in the mix, just staying with the dusties. It's a trick I learned when I wrote my Southwest Album Quilt Book. I thought it through and determined that mixed in with the sand is a lot of dust, which the wind picks up and throws around into the air, yielding a very atmospheric schema on the horizon of the wide open spaces in the southwest, from Mexico to the mountains of Wyoming. The colors also correspond in a way with the dyes native Americans made woven rugs, mats, and serapes. When I started writing my book, I did so because I T-totally hated the "southwestern" samples the salesmen were bringing around for quilters. A-r-r-g-h!!! Everything had devil red, horrid orange, angry ochre, and this gaudy tealy turquoise, outlined in pitch black. It was nothing like I recollected from the trip my family took to Nueva Laredo, nothing like the bright and beautiful market place there back in the early 60s, nothing like the desert, and nothing at all like the atmospheric mountains. I decided my quilt would be atmospheric and softly southwestern, but also with the dusted colors one would see at day's end, just before twilight as the cool for the evening set in, and it was time to light the campfire to tell sibling rugrats scary stories. <giggle>
*sigh*
Oh, anyway, the quilt won the best of show at the Wyoming State Fair in 1993, and when I went to pick it up, the superintendent said for the first time in forever, the cowboys actually came in from their rodeo to see the quilt one of their buds was so excited about, and that it looked exactly like a western quilt, and he'd never seen anyone do that before. So my hunch hit a cord with the guys who hit the dusty trail, feel the lone prairie, see and hear coyotes, cacti, and all the things my little quilt had on it. They saw the same thing I saw is all, and they liked it. Wow, my head is still swollen from that experience and honor of 20 years ago.
This was supposed to be about embroidery, too. Oh, well, the campfire has potluck on it sometimes.
*sigh*
Oh, anyway, the quilt won the best of show at the Wyoming State Fair in 1993, and when I went to pick it up, the superintendent said for the first time in forever, the cowboys actually came in from their rodeo to see the quilt one of their buds was so excited about, and that it looked exactly like a western quilt, and he'd never seen anyone do that before. So my hunch hit a cord with the guys who hit the dusty trail, feel the lone prairie, see and hear coyotes, cacti, and all the things my little quilt had on it. They saw the same thing I saw is all, and they liked it. Wow, my head is still swollen from that experience and honor of 20 years ago.
This was supposed to be about embroidery, too. Oh, well, the campfire has potluck on it sometimes.
The person who did this could have been under 5 years old, you never know, or older than 80 with poor vision on interpreting chart instruction motifs. She definitely was better than me about staying on the pattern right. Who cares if it's not perfect? The colors are way too cute!
