Thursday, December 26, 2013

Holiday Colors, 2

Back in prehistoric times, when I was a kid, Santa put oranges in my family's stockings. A friend mentioned that Santa did the same for her, too. Santa must have some kind of tradition. We kids were puzzled--what good were oranges when candy would have been so much better? You certainly couldn't play with an orange. It just made a big round lump in the toe of the stocking...every Christmas.

Fast forward to centuries later: now I can understand the miracle of oranges because I have been picking them for the last month or so in my orchard.



Lush, sweet, juicy fruit that starts green and slowly turns to a deep red-orange as the
temperatures go down. A cheerful color against green leaves in the middle of the gray of winter. A feast for the eyes, not to mention the healthy aspect of all that natural vitamin C.





Right in season, a bowl of oranges served as a subject for the Sketch Club last week. A blind sketch first.







Then a "half" blind sketch (one eye peeking) with colored pencils added.




The lovely colors tempted me to turn to my textile sketchbook. I took out my handy glue stick and attached 
a floral cotton print from a flea market blouse to a notebook page, then sewed it down. 

I cut directly into the fabrics (very liberating, I felt like a kindergartner) and laid down the shapes, which I glued and stitched by machine. 




I added the text, "Holiday Colors in my Garden,"
and some machine embroidery, scribbling with the machine.
Santa is right; every stocking should have a beautiful orange in the toe.


Linked to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" and Leah's "Free Motion Quilting Project."

35 comments:

Silvana Vituriano Celistre said...

Happy 2014. It's always good to see your posting.

Unknown said...

We always got an orange in our stockings too. Love this fabric sketch and a happy memory too!
Happy new year (almost)
-sus


Ellen said...

Ik vind het altijd genieten om je blog te lezen en wens je dan ook een gelukkig creatief 2014.
Groet Ellen

Martha Wolfe said...

Happy Holidays, Nadia! May 2014 be filled with peace and inspiration! Lovely garden designs - Martha

Cate Rose said...

I love your stitched oranges! Happy New Year, Nadia -- may yours be filled with joy and happinessX

Kitchener Quilter said...

Love your oranges. You are fortunate to have them growing nearby. We got an orange in our stocking, too. We were on a farm, mostly self-sufficient. The grocery list was short: flour, sugar, coffee, and oranges. All the things we could not grow / freeze / preserve ourselves. We had an abundance of sweets around, but very little citrus. That "Japanese" orange, as they were called then, were a real treat. And the only one we had in the year!

Mo Crow said...

love all these orange sketches, you have such a wonderfully fluid sense of line Nadia!

Radka said...

Where I came from, all those centuries ago, oranges were hard to come by, it was something my mother had to queue for, if she was lucky to find them in the shop at all.
It was a special present :-)
I love your stitched version,
xx

Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson said...

I love your freeform applique with machine scribbling. I'm not so much a fan of perfect applique. This looks like it would be a good weekly project for 52 finished pieces a year.

Stitching Lady said...

Simply wonderful what you show to us! Happy new Year to you!

Tonya Ricucci said...

beautiful sketch. I got an orange in my christmas stocking too. Along with peanuts in the shell - lots of cheap stuff to fill it up!

Martha said...

This is a perfect little Christmas piece. I too remember getting oranges in my stocking. They came from south Texas and were delicious. But they weren't as pretty as yours.

Julie Fukuda said...

What used to be called quilting has become fabric art. Whatever the media, it is charming. We always had a walnut in the toe, followed by a tangerine. That was very exotic, living in northern Ohio where those things do not grow.

Elaine/Muddling Through said...

Your oranges - alive and sketched and stitched - are all gorgeous! I also had an orange, or a tangerine and walnuts, too, in my stocking as a child.

Anonymous said...

They're beautifully done, Nadia!

chris said...

Happy New year ! Bonne Année, Feliz Ano Nuevo, Ein gutes neues Jahr, feliz ano novo, felice anno nuovo, sana saiida, selamat tahun baru, gelukkig nieuwjaar, szczesliwego nowego roku, štastný nový rok,

On the occasion of the change of the year,
let me wish you come a few days before my sweetest wishes for 2014
At the end of the year 2013!
And before the stroke of midnight opens the first day of 2014.
I wish you a great year!
This is 2014 with 365 days of well-being, and is full of good health for you, tolerance in all fields, friendship and love.
success, health, happiness, prosperity, for you and for all your family, and it carries all your wishes.
¸..· ´¨¨)) :¦:
¸.·´ .·´¨¨))
((¸¸.·´ ..·´ -:¦:- -:¦:- ((¸¸.·´* ~ Chris ~ :¦:
http://nsm08.casimages.com/img/2013/12/26/13122609011112502811843972.gif

KeyQuilter said...

Beautiful job! I saw fresh oranges on trees when I was in California 30-something years ago. Didn't know they were oranges because they were green! We don't "grow" oranges in Oklahoma but we sure grow OKRA!

CREATIVE KHADIJA said...

how nice.. lovely post :)

Linda M said...

I always got the orange in the stocking too. How wonderful to have an orange tree ,your sketch captures the essence of the tree.

Regina B Dunn said...

Beautiful, brilliant fabric sketch. Makes me want to grab an orange now.

Ineke said...

So lovely!

LA Paylor said...

Nadia, this is very free, and you caught the essence of the orange. I also grew up with an orange in the toe of a stocking, and as a kid didn't get it. My father worked with crops of fruit to sell, so we always had oranges, an embarrassment of riches!
LeeAnna Paylor
lapaylor.blogspot.com

Amy Art Quilter & Fyber Cafe said...

I like the free form cutting, raw and alive, great layering of fabrics, the blue/green leaves really set off the bright orange

Sandy said...

Oranges are great as are your sketches and piece. Thanks for commenting on my blog.

MARIA CRISTINA said...

Beautiful work of orange fabric!
Merry Christmas and a very good start to 2014.

Teresa Duryea Wong said...

Nadia: I always love reading your posts. Have a great holiday! Teresa

Valerie the Pumpkin Patch Quilter said...

Oh this is WONDERFUL!! :)

Emma said...

Your oranges are beautiful! We always got satsumas & I still give them to my boys in their stockings! Enjoyed catching up with your lovely stitch sketching & your gardens progress - I've never met anybody else who has an hibachi before!

Norma Schlager said...

Yup! Orange or tangerine in my stocking, too. I think that they were considered somewhat of a luxury item in the winter in those long ago days.
Love your orange fabric sketch!
Happy New Year to you. I love reading your blog, so please keep it up when you can.

Unknown said...

Oh this is lovely! I love the free-form of it.

Terry Aske Art Quilts said...

We also had an orange in the toe of our Christmas stockings when we were children.

Your oranges look good enough to eat!

Carol said...

Hi Nadia, I am glad I came to visit today. Eons ago when I was a child I too remember not only an orange, but an apple, nuts and some candy in my stocking. We were very poor and had little fruit during the year, so this was as much a treat or more than the stocking stuffers.

O'Quilts said...

I love this piece. I also got an orange...easy peasy since I grew up in Arizona and we had them in our backyard. This beautiful piece of yours reminds me of that..nice work.

Unknown said...

It was also used when I was a child a few sweets and a lot of seasonal fruit and dried fruit.
your patch oranges are tasty as the ones on the tree.
Bravissima!
Nadia,
Ciao
Dany
danieladancelli.wordpress.com

Janet M. Atwill said...

The aroma must have been intoxicating!