Inspiration is free - take some ideas!

Isn't it great that we can get inspiration anywhere? Here are a few places I recently found some inspiration:

1 - A child's palette. I was making hair wraps with embroidery floss on the 7 little girls on our camping trip recently and one of the 7 year olds picked this color combo. And it was great on it's own, but when I put it down to photograph and think about later, I only had my pants to use to set it down on, and then this green was there with them. Even as I am typing this now, don't you think this entire photo would make a great quilt?

2 - A child's painting. I feel like Z has such a beautifully abstract sense of creativity.
He wanted me to leave this painting at the museum where he made it, but I couldn't. I needed to chew on the layout and amazing color choices he made. I so could see this being a quilt, too.

3 - Just messing around. While Z was painting the above masterpiece, Mimi was painting mermaids and I was just messing with the paints. I hate this page that I did below, but I love the idea of using it as a study in color, or isolating little sections to find as my Collage professor, Franklyn, says "little moments" that work for further study.

Color inspiration

There's a store in LA that I drive by regularly that sells bridesmaid dresses. I'm not exactly in the market, but these dresses continually catch my eye. This particular grouping really inspired my color sense... And prior to the hot pink dress being there, there was a leaf green one that offset these colors well too. (I think the photo I took has an accidental reflection of a tree in it that can give you an idea of how it looked)

Anyhow, you can see I grabbed some paint chips at Home Depot as I couldn't get the combo off my mind. And then I went home and picked fabrics to go in the scheme.

The photo with the blue newsprint fabric in it holds my final pics for a project... But the castoffs also made a great pile too...

Both of them are a little out of my comfort zone... Softer combos than I normally stick with, but I'm excited to use them.

Spring and green

Spring is here... Though it's been feeling like summer in L.A. this week. I have found myself wearing this color all week... Wondering if perhaps I love it more than RED??? (don't think so, but it's debatable this time of year)

I made this top last night with some fabric I'd been stashing for a while and some of my "Tori Higa Motherload" (fabric she offloaded on me as she moved cross country)... Like it, Tori?... I'll post where I got the tutorial in a little bit.... When I get some computer time...right now I'm in the kitchen with coffee... (okay... link is in. I got it at Sew, Mama, Sew...)

I like the square neckline and ruffled sleeves. But I especially love the color.

Favorite Colors

For years, I declined to have a favorite color. (or maybe I was denying the color that was indeed, my favorite) ... it's weird to think about favorite colors.
In planning my wedding, I chose bridesmaid dresses that defied a color name, I still can't decide, years later, if they were more of a "shimmery bark" or a "gun metal" - and though my florist in his description of the flowers for my wedding, said I loved purple (I don't, I can't stand it!) - I knew that with my dresses and the green and brown foliage of the ranch that purple was the right color for the flowers to complement the many greens we were using.
I think the weirdest thing of it all is that I was totally in denial that I love RED. and I do. I love almost every shade of red: brick, orange, sienna, clay, scarlet, tomato, fire-engine - you name it - even most pinks... but I was in my "designer" phase then - and I had to love black and only black.
And now, with a preschooler and a toddler, I can't avoid having a favorite - because I get asked, oh, at least 12 times a day which is my favorite color - because this is an important thing to a little person.
Do you remember, as a kid, thinking about people in terms of what their favorite colors were? ("Can I be friends with her if her favorite color is brown?") And as adults, we never ask each other which colors we prefer, unless we're buying something for the person... It's pretty funny to ask a friend. I even asked my hubby recently and totally guessed wrong. Even after seven years of marriage.

Oh, and in case you wonder... (as if you do)
I also LOVE acidic greens. not EVERY green... just the hot ones.
I guess it IS important, after all.