Beginning to Quilt

I hope everyone has a Happy Easter!   Enjoy getting together with family and friends plus celebrating the meaning of today.  Don't eat too much candy. 

To aide in stitching a design on the sweater, I decided to draw the design using a quilter's pencil.  I don't have the confidence to do it totally free hand.  Hopefully, that will come with time.  Now, I just need to get up the nerve to tackle stitching the small circles.

 

 

I used a black watercolor pencil to add shading below and to the right of the feet.  I am not sure if it is dark enough.  I am getting up the nerve to stitch the sweater.

Next, I decided to stitch the pumpkins and the blond hair on the little girl.  I tried making her hair from material, but that didn't work out.  Still trying to get up the nerve to do the little circles on the sweater.

Finally, I stitched the sweater.  Doing the little circles wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be.

 

 

Here is a close up of the pumpkins.  I used a chalk pencil to draw the lines first. My confidence is just not there yet to do it freehand.

Pa and Ma Ingalls made their final home in DeSmet.

 

It was exciting to sit on the steps on the front of the house.

 

 

This is the church bell Pa helped to buy

 

Black and White

Even though the calendar says spring, Mother Nature says, I don't think so.  Oh well, three months from now we will be complaining about the heat and the humidity.  We just can't win.

Something is missing.

I turned the color photo into black and white to help me to figure out what was missing.  The composition is off balance.  It is too heavy on the left.  There is really nothing that draws my eye to the right.

 

The composition needed a pumpkin on the right hand side to balance it.

 

Back to black and white for a composition check; I think we have a Bingo!

 

I  casted the light from the left and shading was added to the figures.

Now, we are ready for quilting!

If you remember in the "Little House Books" books, Laura Ingall's first teaching experience was at the Brewster School.  This is a replica of the schoolhouse.

 

A small one room building

 

 

Inside views

 

 

 

 

 

Light? Dark?

Spring is "springing" this week.  About 2 days ago, I went walking and saw daffodils and two red buds in full bloom.  Come on spring!  Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Brown?

Brown and Brown?

 

 

Light?

Light and brown?

".

Ripped out the stitching and switched to "Light".

Light and brown

They look like they are walking on air.  I think I need to add some shadows.

 

If you read the book By the Shores of Silver Lake, here it is. This is where they lived in the wonderful home filled with canned goods left by the surveyors.

The surveyors home has been moved from its orginal location.  This is the front view of the home.

This is the back view.

The Sky

The weather is glorious this weekend after the cold damp , snowy, rainy, weather of this past week.  Come on, spring!  I went walking yesterday and saw purple, yellow and white crocus in full bloom...spring is just around the corner.

Earlier this week, I kept my attention on the pumpkin patch to aviod thinking about the sky.  I really was at a lost as to what to do about the sky.  So......I got in the car three different days after school and drove to two quilting stores and one fabric and craft store.  I raced to Patches the first day and had no luck even though they have thousands of bolts of material.  Day two, I went to Seminole Sampler and found a gradient blue material. Then of course, I had to go to one other store, Joannes,  just to make sure I couldn't find something better; which I didn't.  Nothing like wasting my precious sewing time, to continue searching,  after I have chosen a material.

 

 You can see the gradient color scheme in the blue material.  Next, I was trying out hair for mymother and niece.

The placement of the clouds in the sky helped to draw the eye through the composition.  The trees help to break up the negative space.  I think the placement of the trees and the green color helps my eye to travel around the picture.  On the design board it goes, to ponder; What next?


Our next stop on our Laura Ingalls Wilder trip was DeSmet ND.  We stopped at the homestead Ma and Pa settled just outside of towm.

This is a replica of the house they built on the spot of the original house.

 

This is a replica of the barn.

 

The remaining Cottonwood trees Pa planted on the land.  The rock on the right is a monument to Pa and the Cottonwood trees he planted on the land.

The Sweater Dilemma

What is that great big yellow object in the sky?  February was such a gray and dreary month.  I feel like breaking out the shorts and lying on the ground to soak up the sunshine.

I thought I would try to duplicate the colors of the sweaters in the original photo......but, it just doesn't look right, too washed out against the colors in the road.  I decided to use four different materials for the blue jeans.  Dark for one leg and light for the other leg....shading and highlights. 

The pink is a much better contrast and it's not overpowering.   The material on the far left side I bought about a year ago at a quilt show.  I like the vine look and it will help with the pumpkin patch effect.

 

 Putting in the pumpkins has helped to give the illusion of  them walking into the distance.  The purse in the original photo was brown, but I think you will agree, black is a better contrast against the ground color.  There are so many shades of brown and gold in the ground material; a brown purse would have gotten lost.  Mom's sweater had to be the ecru, because that is her trademark sweater she wears on cool fall days. She bought that sweater in Ireland some years back.

 

The pumpkins were definitely lacking something.  I think the leaves help to "ground" the pumpkins in the picture.  The pumpkin patch needs more, but I am not sure where to go with it.  On the design board it goes while I ponder....what next?


As we journeyed on the Laura Ingalls Wilder trail, Highway 14, our next stop was Walnut Grove.

If you read On the Banks of Plum Creek, then you will recall the big rock by the creek.  Here it is!  We took off our shoes to wade in the creek and to stand on the rock.

 

This picture was taken standing near the site of the dugout looking through the plum thickets at table top.

 

  Here is  what is left of the dugout home where the Ingalls family lived in.