Day at the Zoo, part II

I did say I had more photos. And no, the elephant was not the quilting inspiration -- I just really like the picture and my daughter was thrilled by the elephant sculpture that sprayed water.

The quilting inspiration came in one of our last stops of the day. Brookfield Zoo has a fantastic butterfly exhibit. It is located in a "greenhouse" (I have the " " because while it is screened, it isn't closed to the outside air) that has been landscaped and planted with butterflies in mind. The plants smell wonderful (and after the primate house and portions of the indoor fragile desert areas -- this was a "good thing") and the colors are absolutely amazing. In addition to the colors -- well, imagine walking into a movie set idea of a butterfly garden. Hundreds and hundreds of North American butterflies zooming around in colors that rival the plants.

The colors on these little beauties really got me thinking about the way I use color in my quilts. Can't you just picture a quilt based on the colors found in a butterfly in the same rough proportions? I think it would be an instant recipe for color success. Just look at this one (sorry it's blurry -- some of them just didn't sit still for long but it's clear enough to get the color story). Black with punches of bright clear blue, red, and orange. Add in some lime green as the "neutral" background and you would have something spectacular.

And how about this one? The bright yellow of the flower with the browns, blacks, oranges and tans of the butterfly. Again, how can you go wrong with this combination? I'm not really a brown person. It's a color I don't generally use. I prefer its brighter cousin orange. But this combination could tempt me mightily. Add in some of that grass green from the leaves and you could have a truly stunning quilt.

And finally, this one. I'm also not usually one for neutral colors. If there is one thing universally missing from my stash it would be fabrics in the neutral range. If I am making a quilt that needs them -- I have to go out and buy them specifically for that quilt. This beauty could change my mind. Look at the browns, tans and whites. The white almost looks like it has tinges of palest, almost iridescent blue. Add some serious punches of chocolate brown with some deeper orange -- quiet, but what a punch visually. And yes, while some of the butterflies were hard to get photos of, there were a few that just seemed to sit there and pose for me. This white beauty was one and so was the one above.

So that's my quilting inspiration at the zoo. Pure color stories. I like the shapes on the wings, and of the butterflies, but my quilts don't go that way and I really can't see me making an applique butterfly quilt anytime soon. But using the colors in them -- oh yeah, that I can see. As for the zoo -- we didn't see anywhere near all there is to see. We decided to take it easy and make sure it was enjoyable -- and not too much for a 2 year old to take in. That way, she will want to go back. We managed to do that -- and she's not the only one who can't wait for the return trip!

Play time --

Since I've finished dd's new heart quilt, and work and school are about to become very busy I am at a point where I really don't want to start a new quilt. (ok, not quite true -- I WANT to start about three quilts, I have an idea for the Dick and Jane fabrics, there is my mil's Christmas present, and a few other "projects" I've had on the back burner for so long I need to revisit them. But TIME, TIME I won't have for another month.) So, what to do? More bags are an option -- I have tons of FQs left from dd's quilt and in addition to the drawstring bags I've shown here, I have a few other patterns that don't call for much more. Plus, really, how hard could it be to come up with my own little bag without a pattern?

But -- well, I really wanted a chance to play a bit. What to do? I had seen this post from Tracey at ozcountryquiltingmum about what she had done with some extra HST blocks. I had a stack of orphan HST's (thanks to Tonya for the name "Orphan" block -- I like it much more than either mistake or leftovers. Mistakes -- well, who wants to admit to or deal with them? Leftovers give me visions of the nasty containers that get shoved to the back of the refrigerator and eventually find their way into the garbage. But orphans -- orphans I feel for. They deserve to find a home.) from the quilt I made for my mother for Christmas this year (still looking for a picture of this one - I swear it's around here somewhere). I decide to play!

It was a lot of fun just cutting them up and mixing and matching to see how they could be arranged. The two blocks I ended up with (with a couple of squares of other scraps from Mom's quilt) I really like. I still have some more orphan HST's -- I'm thinking about reversing the colors and having the white be the points rather than the background.

Other than this bit of fun playing, the weekend was pretty laid back. A trip to pick up my mil at the airport ended up in a stop on the way home at a quilt shop I love but don't get to often because of distance. I found a few things -- but not as much as I could have. My mil bought some fun fabrics for me to turn into a purse for her and a fun little crafty project that makes fabric origami stars and bags. We got to play with these on Easter Sunday when the inlaws came over for dinner.

The Easter Bunny brought dd a bubble blowing dragon (the package says dinosaur -- but who ever heard about a bubble breathing dinosaur? Now a bubble breathing dragon I will buy) and it was sunny for long enough for us to take him outside for a test drive. She loved chasing after the bubbles! All in all, a great weekend -- a bit of the cleaning I mentioned before done, most not. But I think I spent my time much more productively playing with bubbles and fabric than with dust bunnies!

Color me pink

While surfing blogdom the other day I saw another quilter's post about her favorite color -- pink. It made me think about my own relationship with pink. If you had asked me three years ago if I liked the color -- I would have looked at you and said "do I LOOK like a pink person"? Which is odd, since as a child, it was my absolute favorite color and I even convinced my parents to paint my room hot pink. Then my dear friend became pregnant and had a little girl. Ok, girls get pink right? I have some pink fabric hanging around in the stash -- and being a contentious godmother -- I need to make my godchild a quilt. Let's forget for a minute that said godchild's mother is also a quilter. So -- some pink fabric is not enough for a quilt so I'll just buy pink fabric -- mini-challenge to myself to make a quilt entirely of one color -- and I will buy the fabric at random, not trying to "match" it, just keep buying until I feel it's ready. The only rule for the purchases is that the fabric has to say "pink" to me -- in other words, be the primary color. I figured that I would either end up with a cute and quirky pink quilt -- or the world's ugliest quilt.

Yards and yards of pink fabric later -- I decided to take the plunge. By this time, I was pregnant and my goddaughter was almost six months old. Turns out, I had purchased enough fabric for two quilt tops (did I mention I tend to overbuy fabric?). I still didn't know if I was going to have a boy or a girl, but hey -- the second one could always be a charity quilt. By the time the top was together, I knew I was having a girl as well. Because of my dislike of the color, and because of my own "rules" for making the quilt -- "Puke me up Pink I" and "II" were born. One for my goddaughter, and one for my own daughter. What you see here is "Pink I" -- my goddaughter has hers across the country and I don't actually have a photo of it finished.

A funny thing happened when I was working on it though -- I rediscovered how much I actually LIKED pink. Working with all of the bubblegum colors and hot vibrant fuchsias made me remember how happy they made me -- and what they reminded me of. Pink peeps with the gooey marshmallow. My first pair of Nike's which were baby pink with a white swoosh. My room as a child with hot pink and lime green wallpaper with white cartoon bunnies everywhere. The pink and white shag carpeting in my room. Plucking fresh raspberries off of the bushes in the backyard and eating them while they were still warm from the sun. Something else happened too -- since the two pinks, almost every quilt I have made since then has had pink in it. What started out as a project to use up every scrap of pink in my stash, has now created a whole pink section of my stash that has threatened to take over every other color.

I'm glad I rediscovered a former favorite, but I wonder if I'm the only one this has happened to? Are there colors that you don't like/can't stand and then working with them helps you appreciate them? Or is this just a strange quirk of my own?