Saturday, October 13, 2012

Distracted

That's how I've been this week.  And grumpy.  Ups and downs.  Many prayers muttered under my breath as I dealt with my wounded car.  >.<

Based on the Black Book value, I thought it might be a write-off, so I've been researching replacement costs.  Blessing #1: in the process of this research, I found out that my Canada Pension income is going to be more than expected, beginning at the end of this month.  Hooray!

Blessing #2: It now looks like it can be repaired after all (hooray again!) but the shop can't get me in for at least a week -- currently backed up with hail claims from the summer and recent 'deer hits'.  I know; it sounds as if the good citizens of Lacombe County have conspired to decimate the local white tail population ...but I doubt it.  Just adjusting to longer dawns and earlier dusk-driving, which is when these beautiful creatures decide to leap out at drivers from the side of the road.  I've been very blessed never to have had such an encounter; my car damage came from other humans, while the car was parked!

Now I have to wait till Monday to confirm who's going to pay for car rental while the shop fixes my baby...later this month.  I'm hoping that my patience -- such as it is -- will be rewarded with Blessing #3, and that all the costs will be covered by the other parties' insurance company.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Pookie had her first immunizations yesterday and this morning she is a bit off her feed and certainly subdued.  I'm keeping an eye on her, but expect this is par for the course.

For most of the week I've been working on and off on my second C&G assignment, involving researching contemporary applique artists I like, and deciding who to focus on.  While I admire the fine work of Elly Sienkiewicz and the fast, fun, fusing of Laura Wasilowski, I am really leaning toward applique as surface design -- or should that be 'surface design as applique'?  This means I've been looking at Sandra Meech, Bonnie Lyn McCaffery, and Rosemary Eichorn.  And then there's the team of Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn -- "Double Trouble" -- who are embroiderers who use applique to add to the texture of cloth they make completely with stitch on water-soluble fabric.

My mind has been a-whirl with ideas, excited by simply reading about what these artists create and how they do it!  I want to try everything at once!

I decided to try to calm myself by working through the 3 exercises in the one book I own by Sandra Meech: Contemporary Quilts: Design, Surface and Stitch, Batsford Publishing, London, England, 2003.  It took me the better part of puttering around yesterday, but eventually I finished Exercise #1, based on a photo I took a few years ago of a rusty old hand-pump in the overgrown yard of an abandoned country school (now a historic landmark).

This sort of exercise is not new to me, but it is particularly useful in training the eye to see, in studying colour, and in focusing the mind on one's art -- and off one's problems!

Today has dawned brighter than the past few days; the snow on my front lawn has melted, and I'm off for a good run jog.  Then it'll be time for Meech's Exercise #2, some work on the reconstruction of my daughter's sweater, and maybe some embroidery to round out the day.

1 comment:

Jennifer said...

Yikes - I didn't know you had an accident. I sure hope you are physically OK? Cars can be replaced, but not joints and bones.

Isn't Sandra Meech inspirational ?

Chimo,
Jennifer