WIP–Details, Details

August 10, 2011 Elizabeth E.4 Comments

Thanks to Lee, of Freshly Pieced for hosting this forum.

Coming home from vacation is such an interesting feeling. I read your blogs and your comments on Facebook and you seem to slide from one zone to another, effortlessly. I, however, have had quite a “re-entry” from my time away. Perhaps that’s because there aren’t children around anymore to pull and push me into activity. I did spend close to 10 hours on the computer the first day home getting things to the print center where I teach, then a haircut, laundry, College Orientation on the second day home, which brings me here to WIP Wednesday, and that freshly laundered handkerchief on the ironing board. So the details of today are laundering and pressing the handkerchief and vintage fabrics (hoping that musty smell leaves soon—any tips?)

More details include making a label for summer’s last quilt.

A little more hand-stitching tonight as I watch one more Harry Potter movie–I’m on Number 4. A friend dropped by her collection so I could watch them all at once before going out to see the latest.

And I’m listening to Last Town on Earth, by Thomas Mullen, while I work. Riveting fiction–I highly recommend it.

My husband and I have been retracing our steps of many years ago. Yesterday I said to him, “And today was the day we packed all my four children into our new mini-van and drove to Utah. Did I drop you off at your parents’ house before I went up to Ogden to stay at my parents’?”

“Yes. I slept on their old sofa, as my childhood bedroom was full of my sister’s kids.”

Many years ago today was the last day my beloved sweetheart had his bachelor status, and tonight we’ll talk about the “rehearsal dinner” in a park with all his nieces and nephews and my children and his sisters and brothers and my sisters and brothers and our parents coming in together in a great picnic. That night he and I worried about different things: I worried that my children wouldn’t fit in, that the blending of the family would be too much for the both of us. He worried about finances and how we were going to make it through all the college years, even though the oldest was only 14 at the time. But what we didn’t worry about was our love and commitment to each other. Yes, many years ago the small details seemed to be detritus, like little bugs buzzing around the grand event of our marriage. But this week we enjoy them, think about them, recall them and relish the bits and pieces and patchwork of our wedding day.

WIP

Doing Nothing But Making A Mess

July 26, 2011July 26, 2011 Elizabeth E.6 Comments

This is WIP Wednesday, hosted by Lee of Freshly Pieced Quilts, who is fabulous and writes us all a thank-you note for posting. My mother and grandmother salute you, Lee! (As do I.)

Let’s start with a quote from Andrew Wyeth, a great American painter, culled from the Brandywine River Museum when I visited last fall:

“I dream a lot. When I’m doing nothing is when I’m doing the most. Sometimes when there is great tension, or lots taking place, I may get an idea or an emotion, and it hits me strong. I let it build in my mind before I ever put it down on the panel. Sometimes I do my best work after the models have gone away, purely from memory. (1996)”

I’m kind of in a fallow period right now as well. It’s time to make the shift from an all-quilt life to a life shared with the papers and detritus of my real job: an adjunct professor. I’ve been quieter here on the blog, not because I haven’t lots to share, but I had to get that pesky syllabus over to the Copy Center on campus, as well as the Get To Know You form for the first day. We’re also slipping out to a family reunion and a camping adventure in a National Park before I start back up again, so I’ve been doing the regular things like getting the car prepped, tires checked, laundry. Well–you’ve all been on vacations and you know what’s involved. Perhaps because of this, I relate to Wyeth’s comment “when there is great tension, or lots taking place” it’s hard to be creative.

But since these Wednesday posts are about Work In Progress, I give to you my WIP: cleaning up the sewing room.
No lie.

Another lovely view. Sometimes I just pile the stuff here and there, making way for that next project. I’ve been trying to finish up a few things (two more coming in the next couple of weeks–on Fridays), yet you can see on the corner of my elevated cutting table a stack of reds and whites.

The Red/White Challenge finished ahead of schedule! Here they all are, with my block on the top. I have them up on the pin wall, just percolating there as I think very sweet thoughts about the women who took a chance on me and my quirky idea. September 1st is the deadline for the Temecula Quilt Company’s “quilt show” and I want to have something new to add.