Enthusiasm

I have been working regularly on two projects, but by the beginning of last week I realized I was dragging.  On my way toward the stairs to my workroom, I would notice the computer and check e-mail, even though I had done that less than half an hour before.  I even spent one morning getting a window open and washing the accumulated dust and spiderwebs off a storm window that hadn't been cleaned in--well, let's just say a long time.

I'm liking where these projects are going so I was certainly not ready to abandon them, but I kept thinking about the most flamboyantly colored and most unstructured of those art quilts I had seen at the Packwood House, and these were far from what I was working on.  One section of one of the projects--that one I am working on now--involves lots of little pieces in various shades of gray, and I had worked with a lot of gray this summer in my chickadee quilt.  While the other project was more free form in conception, the execution of it requires some concentration and detail work. I needed some color and some freedom!

So I went in search of a good background--a deep purple hand-dye seemed appropriate, put it up on my working wall and then started cutting out variously colored roundish shapes.

I have no idea where exactly this dotty piece is going at this point, but I smile every time I pass it, and I am not only back to working on my other two projects as well, I am working on them with enthusiasm.  It's amazing what a little color will do.  By Friday I even had to force myself to take a break to vacuum and finish putting a meal together in preparation for dinner guests that evening.

And if you are still with me, thanks for the company!

Serendipity

Now that the delights of family immersion are over, I have returned my focus to my quilting.  Nature gave me two gifts today:  a thoroughly self-possessed coyote trotted across our back hill just a few yards outside the kitchen window this afternoon.  His coat was so thick and long you could easily have sunk both hands into it--gray on top and shading to a deep, rich red brown, a color that I worked a long while to capture this fall as I was dying fabric. It was one of those Oh-my-gosh!-moments.

Earlier in the day Tom and I got a thorough look at a sharp-shinned hawk that had perched in the chestnut tree outside another kitchen window.  He had the same striking color of brown on his breast and on the front and sides of his neck.

I had to do something with that color and later in the day I began a challenge piece that yesterday I had decided not to do because it was not close enough to my usual range of subject matter and technique.  That shade of brown is an important element in it, and working on this project that is a little outside my comfort zone has been satisfying so far.  With luck, you will see more on this.

And I had to remind myself that, not only would I not have gotten any quilting done today, but I would have missed both those beautiful creatures had I been working at the library instead of working at home.