Hello friends! I took a few months off from writing for Butterbean, but I’m back and ready to show you all the stuff I’ve been working on. There have been lots of painting, gardening, and sewing the past few months, but also lots of full-time job stuff. I’m so happy that Spring is here and the garden is thriving again. I love patiently waiting for plants to erupt from the ground. Seedings growing into plants. The excitement of finding the first blossoms about to open up. I love it all and the joy it gives me was so missed over the winter. Of course, there are things I could do without; mainly the black widows. I can live with pulling weeds, the crazy wind and even the blaring sun, but black widows gotta go.
In February I brought out my fabric paints that I had stashed away. I had used them a few times before, but nothing clicked before. When I painted fabric this time, something happened that set off a chain reaction of ideas. Call it a creative breakthrough, but I really figured some stuff out just with a couple sessions of blobbing paint on fabric.
I took my painted fabric and started making quilt blocks with them. Then painted some more fabric and made quilt blocks with those. And then sewed the blocks together to make a wallhanging art piece. I almost have the quilting done on one of the pieces and then I’ll be on to binding it and figuring out the hanging apparatus.
So, the painting on fabric whim got me back into quilts and I mean it big time got me back into them. Everything is quilts. If you follow me on instagram, you know the deal.
Painting on fabric, painting on paper. Sewing with the painted fabric. Sewing the quilts I painted on the paper. Sewing, painting, quilting, dreaming, repeat. I’ve been trying to make painting a daily activity. I really like fitting a painting session in the morning because I feel like a better person the rest of the day. I’ve been posting my paintings on my artstagram account, cottonandochre, with the hopes of one day opening up my store again.
It’s now May, and I don’t see any signs of stopping. I’m in my quilt period. Maybe one day I’ll get tired of painting quilts and painting on fabric, but right now I’m in a good place with my art. It’s feelin’ nice.
Besides sewing quilt blocks together, I did sew a couple garments. I was a tester for the Steph Time Side Tie Top, which releases today (May 5th). I love the way it turned out so much and it’d been getting a lot of use in the short time I’ve had it finished. It’s starting to get too warm for it now though. I can always make a Summer version.
I also made myself a top self-drafted crossbody apron/smock. I’ve always wanted one and finally got the notion to make one. I used some rust colored twill that I had on hand and already had matching thread. Now that I finished that, I’m hoping to finish a couple WIPs that I’ve had laying around for a while.
That’s all for now! I hope you all are always experimenting and playing with your art. If something doesn’t work out one time, you can always go back and try it again. Take time to rest your brain!