Art Projects and Beautiful Spring day!!

We have had 3 beautiful Spring days!

 After cutting back some lavender and the large rosemary bush, I discovered a wonderful clump of miniature iris!   Beautiful purple with yellow throats.

We expect some rain (yea!) tomorrow and  so Russ is planting some seedling trees we have been tending in pots for a year.  

Now on to quilting.....and the art project exercises.  The first exercise in Chapter 3  of the Art Quilt Workbook is to create a pear from the photo and pattern using fusible applique.  No problem, I can do that.  I thought I would just pull out a box of scraps and find what I needed color wise and be done soon.  The pear is ok...not great..and I made it worse when  I grabbed the wrong background  fabric.   The medium light is too bluish, and the highlight just gets lost in the background. 

What not to do

So back to the stash and a whole different direction.  I pulled out reds and decided on a purple for the shadow and a paler background.  Much better, actually I think it is good.   The pear had distinct shape and contour even.   My photo doesn't show the highlight very well, but in real life it pops.

This is much better

I will finish this one off as I like it a lot.   So, Elin, if you read this....did I get it right?

Insight:  Try and try again.  Learning is a process, even in quilting.

I have been busy snapping photos of simple objects for the next exercise and then I have to draw my own version and create a pattern.   Probably will have another what to do and not do with that one too!  That's the learning process.