Accountability Sunday

The week was spent with my grandchildren during the day.  I turned them loose with glue, scissors and paper and watched them go at as I sat alongside them and did the same.  They are so free in their approach, not giving a hoot about colour, design...just the joy of working with the materials.  I tried to get in the same head space when I finally got to the studio Friday afternoon.

I began by rummaging through my fabrics looking for colours that spoke to me and threw them at the wall.

Once I got these up, I knew they were too close in value and taking a photo and then putting it in gray scale proved me right.  Dyeing fabric would have been too much of a distraction as I've never been able to dye just what I need and one thing leads to another and I'm screen printing, wax resist...and it takes on a life of it's own.  I left them on the wall as I really want to work with the shroud fabric in the middle. 

The 2 days, 12 hours I spent at the studio minus 3 hours for socializing was spent trying to come up with a design for the fabrics above and then moving into my graffiti fabrics, the start which is below.  I devoted 4 hours here at home to Digital Quilting by Lura Schwarz Smith and Kerby Smith and am completed it with it.  I've made some prints on fabric that I'm considering putting on the front of pillows.

The paperwork did not get completed, I did sew the binding on the jockey quilt and got the baby embellishments attached to The Mid-wife.  I'm going to damp stretch it tonight.  

This coming week the temps are dropping but I'm still going to plan on getting to the studio before Friday for at least 6-8 hours.   Additionally, I'll be hanging out Friday night for Trolley Hop, so come see me.  My goals for the coming week is to get 2 sets of paperwork completed, get the binding sewn on the mid-wife and add more embellishments at the bottom and get the graffiti quilt to the next stage.  These objectives fall under creating more quilts this year.  

I finished reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman.  The first book I've read by this author.  For me, it was an epic read.  I never thought the book would end and even after it ended, there was an interview with the author (10th anniversary edition), a reading group discussion guide, and words by the author.  The first 1/3rd of the book I was going to give it up...but a little further and I was beginning to "get it" and it had me pondering and wondering and questioning about our society and how it is structured and what drives it.  What does it mean for a country to call itself a melting pot and what happens to the cultures, beliefs, ways of life to those who melt?  It was a very visual read that created a world that engulfed me in the last half of the book.  The movie, The Book of Eli, is a good companion to this read although they are two separate worlds but the theme of faith and belief strike through both of them.