Color playing

I've been busy busy busy getting fabric and supplies - mostly fabric - ready for the upcoming workshop.   Reading her supply/instructions list, and whatever I could glean on line, it was clear that lots of fabric is good.  More fabric is better.  And FQ's are no good.  It did say, "bring full yards as much as possible, and whatever you can afford of the rest.  But that was not intended to be FQ, it seems.  I bought two FQ stacks thinking it was the only way I would get enough colors, now I'm feeling like maybe that was a waste and I should have bought 1/2 yards of fewer colors with that cash.  All this sorting and folding and ironing and analyzing has been an interesting exercise in thinking about color.  How many colors can the eye recognize?  Which ones are darks/ lights?  I LOST my little red fabric viewer!  Drat.  Either I misplaced it, accidentally threw it away, or the gd's picked it up, played with it and left it somewhere random.  I will have to buy another one,  but in the meantime I think I will put these photos onto Photoshop and unsaturate them or whatever the term is.

At this point I have about 64 yards, with a few duplicates, so probably 60 colors.  But I feel like so much is missing!   Here are the yellows, greens and oranges.  Color is SO hard to photograph correctly!

These are the reds, pinks and purples:

And this is what I have for grays, blacks, browns and beiges.  In addition there are 5 yards of pure black, 5 of pure (snow) white, and three of my fav. charcoal gray.  (She requested 4 yds black and white, I upped it and added the gray).

And THESE are just a few of the colors that are totally missing from the spectrum so far.
I was hoping to get an order in to Pink Chalk before the end of the week for a few (10?) more yards of missing colors, but I have not had (taken) time to figure out the best choices yet.  Maybe today.  I want to buy what I can locally, and I went to Fabric Etc. and used the 20% discount I'd been saving for the black and white and also some of the requested stripes and prints.

Just from a solid color roll I had, here are colors that seem to be totally missing -  I think I have too many darks and lights and no middles.

Curves

I wish I was posting about curves that I'm piecing or cutting, but I'm actually talking about the curves life throws you.  I thought that the first part of 2012 would be low-key with few commitments and more time to work on quilts.  But two things happened.  Both of them are Very Good Things, but they are both going to take away time from art.  The first thing is that we bought (or are in the process of buying) a new house!  Although we had started randomly scouting out possible locations and prices, we had not formed a clear intention of moving.   

But just like when I didn't really plan to buy a puppy, I started looking around, and something came up that we couldn't resist.  I knew in the back of my mind that if we found the right thing, we would know, and we would have to jump on it.  And we did.  In the next two weeks we should be able to close on it, but won't move for a little while, we need to do some remodeling first.   It's definitely a "fixer" but it's on a great piece of property, almost an acre of land, with woods and trees, and garden space.  

It has a huge workshop for the spouse, and a garage, and a greenhouse, and a garden shed, and a covered kayak storage area, oh yeah, and a DAYLIGHT BASEMENT FOR A QUILTING STUDIO!  Truth be told it's a rather dingy dirty basement.  The yellow paint on the walls and ceilings is a bit of a misguided choice, but I can envision miracles with a little paint and some broad-spectrum lighting.  The main thing is there will be space.  I can have a project out on a table and walk up and work on it.  No climbing over piles, clearing the table to eat, having to dig out a project and all my tools every time I want to work.   I have high hopes.

But the reality is that the whole process of remodeling and moving will be hugely time consuming.  I'm having mixed emotions about leaving my cozy little nest, where I've been for 23 years.  I know the move is the right thing, and we are not going to sell the current house, so there is always the option of going back if we change our minds.

Then there is the second thing I alluded to.  Thanks to my Rotary Club, I will be going to Thailand in May for the Rotary International convention.  The president is unable to attend, and I was chosen to go in her place.  Of course I'm not going all the way to Asia for four days so there will be before and after trips, and the spouse can only get away for a week, so there is the complication of figuring out how long to stay and where to go, etc. etc.  Of course I am thrilled to be asked, and super excited about going, and I'm sure I'll be hugely inspired by the art and architecture there.  But again... time.   Time not doing art.   Well, when life throws you curve balls, hit them out of the park!  I will make the most of both of these opportunities.