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Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Twelve by Twelve: Lorikeet Challenge

Today the Twelve by Twelve group is revealing another of their color challenges.  The colors this time were based on the Lorikeet bird: parrot green, red-orange, gold yellow and a royal blue.  When I saw the colors, no inspiration came to my mind.  They are strong colors and the red, yellow and blue primary colors together is something I don't usually use. 

Since I have other things going on, I thought maybe I wouldn't play along with this one because I had no ideas.  I thought if I were to do something, there would have to be some small amounts of each color.

Last week as I knew their deadline was drawing closer and having finished a bigger piece (will get that posted soon), I thought I would just look and see if I had all those colors in my fabrics and maybe I could make something.  Well, the green color (or close to it), a yellow and the red-orange color were sitting on my table left over from the Polka Dot Circus piece.  I looked for some of the blue and had some scraps that were close to it.  I added some fusible web to the back of the blue and began to see what I could do.

I started out with a twelve by twelve square to try to fit in the size requirement, but I didn't have quite enough of the fabrics scraps to cover it.  It ended up roughly ten inches square instead.  I fused everything to heavy interfacing, did a few quilt lines with the monofilament thread and satin-stitched around the edges.  I had a perfect thread to stitch around the edges that had the red, yellow and blue colors.  Unfortunately, it also had a lavender purple color, too.  I decided to go ahead and use it anyway.  After the stitching was completed, I took a blue Sharpie and carefully colored over the purple thread sections.

Here is the piece.
Three Square Circus
fused applique, machine quilted
approx. 10"x10"
© 2010 Lisa Flowers Ross

As you can see, it did not end up with just a little bit of each of the colors.  The yellow is a little off, too.  It should have been more gold, but this is what I already had.  I think the primary, intense, bright colors make it seem child-like and definitely circus-like.

It sounds like some of the members of the twelve by twelve group also struggled with the color scheme, but I am amazed at how they solved the challenge of it.  They are all very different and have different sensibilities.  Click on the Twelve by Twelve link above (or on the side bar) to enjoy their solutions. 

4 comments:

Joanne S said...

I think having a set of colors but no theme is very difficult. I had made two other pieces that missed the mark completely and then this morning when i saw the first few reveals, I realized it was to be "mostly" green with a few bits of the other colors. And that's when I went back and made the one I showed this morning.

I don't think this series will turn into a second book for the group.

Kristin L said...

I like your's Lisa. It's got the happy energy that the color scheme implies. As you, and Joan, and most of us have discovered, not all colors or combinations are inspiring to everyone -- but that's part of the fun of these challenges -- to see how we can push ourselves. :-)

Terry Grant said...

I really like your piece Lisa, but I have to admit that I am really tired of looking at these colors!

Brenda Gael Smith said...

Snap! We both have the circus thing happening. Thanks for playing along with us!