{"id":1675,"date":"2016-05-03T19:17:09","date_gmt":"2016-05-03T19:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eleanorlevie.com\/quilting-blog\/?p=1675"},"modified":"2016-11-19T05:03:48","modified_gmt":"2016-11-19T05:03:48","slug":"i-really-dont-do-pretty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eleanorlevie.com\/quilting-blog\/?p=1675","title":{"rendered":"I really don’t do “pretty”"},"content":{"rendered":"

As usual, it was a class–long ago–that started me on a new art quilt. In Lesson 2 of About Style, Pamela Allen assigned us online students\u00a0to “cut various long skinny shapes out of different fabrics and ‘grow’ your plant in the same way Nature does.”<\/p>\n

Rather than “grow” a tree from my imagination, as Pamela does, I relied on photos I took on a trip to Lisbon, when the jacarandas were blooming gorgeous.<\/p>\n

\"DSCN5636\"<\/p>\n

\"jacaranda1\"<\/p>\n

Started with a background on a quilt sandwich, anticipating a small art quilt:<\/p>\n

\"background\"<\/p>\n

Next, I brought in the trunk for a pretzel-like tree, with a bunch of lavender prints:<\/p>\n

\"jac-1\"<\/p>\n

“Grew” the tree with other, similarly colored fabrics in various shades and tints:<\/p>\n

\"building\"<\/p>\n

Oh, this could be a really pretty picture, a la my photo. I could balance the lower left side with flowering shrubbery.<\/p>\n

But then I remembered: I don’t really do “pretty.”<\/p>\n

#1, there are so many fabulous art quilters who take “pretty” to levels I could never dream of.<\/p>\n

#2, “pretty” can be pretty boring.<\/p>\n

Around this time, my sister Carolyn was shopping for a new car. As a wife, she had always deferred to her husband’s choices in this department. As a widow with a new-found sense of her capabilities for research and decision-making, and within short order, she she walked into her local Honda dealership, test-drove, and bought a Honda Accord.<\/p>\n

So, in accordance with\u00a0those trees that grew in a high-trafficked, urban setting, and with tremendous pride in my sister’s taste and independence, I slapped a Honda under the jacaranda. And made my getaway from “pretty.”<\/p>\n

\"jac-honda\"<\/p>\n

Stay tuned to see how this art quilt is going, and growing. As always, comments are much appreciated.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As usual, it was a class–long ago–that started me on a new art quilt. In Lesson 2 of About Style, Pamela Allen assigned us online students\u00a0to “cut various long skinny shapes out of different fabrics and ‘grow’ your plant in the same way Nature does.” Rather than “grow” a tree from my imagination, as Pamela […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,20,12,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art-quilt","category-flowers","category-personally-speaking","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Ej5z-r1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eleanorlevie.com\/quilting-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eleanorlevie.com\/quilting-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eleanorlevie.com\/quilting-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eleanorlevie.com\/quilting-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eleanorlevie.com\/quilting-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1675"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.eleanorlevie.com\/quilting-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1686,"href":"https:\/\/www.eleanorlevie.com\/quilting-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675\/revisions\/1686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eleanorlevie.com\/quilting-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eleanorlevie.com\/quilting-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eleanorlevie.com\/quilting-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}