Adapting

I am approaching the end of another in what I have come to call my scrunching series.  It's not ready for a total reveal but I can show you a bit:

And yesterday I had the gift of a whole day without a major house-related task to do. No one was scheduled to look at the house (which may not be such a good thing but it's too soon to panic) so I did not have to scurry around cleaning and ferreting away all the little piles of stuff that seem to multiply like rabbits on any horizontal surface. I decided it was the perfect time to begin some serious work on a new piece.

I had been thinking about this for a while--another in this scrunched series to see how a different pattern will react as it begins to curve across the background.  So it was time to start pulling out fabrics. It didn't take long to find a backing piece, a looser weave than my hand-dyes and batiks so that the needle will at least slip easily through one layer. My vision for this piece began with varying shades of brown and I ran smack into a problem--the first time I have gotten really frustrated by this living(and thus working)-in-two-places lifestyle. For some reason, I had neglected to leave any browns in the PA studio. Well, there was one beautiful brown piece that measured about 5 inches on each side. Here I was--finally with enough time to work but nothing to work with.

After a cup of tea and trip outside to rake up chestnuts (guess I did have to do something around the house), I was ready to try again.  After all, poets who work within the restrictions of a sonnet can produce memorable poems, so I should rise to the challenge of working with a restricted palette.

Try as I might, I could not switch the colors of that next piece--which did teach me something more about this series:  Color is particularly integral to the design. So I took another deep breath and remembered an interesting piece of fabric I had come across in my desperate search for brown. I put it up on the design wall and soon began to see possibilities for another in my raw-edged applique series and I was well on my way to turning a disaster of a day into something quite satisfying.  Can you hear the music swelling as the day closes on a happy ending?

And if you managed to keep reading to the end, thanks for the company!