Challenges

Today I shipped my Great Blue Heron off to the Quilting Natural Florida II show in the Florida Natural History Museum in Gainesville. It will be on display there February 6 through April 25, 2010.

At left is my 11.5" x 11.5" quilt entitled "Rocky." I did this for the Miami Valley Art Quilt Network's challenge with the theme "chocolate. " Rocky is my brother's chocolate lab and here he is snorking along the banks of Cut Bank Creek.


Here's the original photo. I was standing on the bank about 10 feet above Rocky. I had to take some artistic license as you can see that the only indication that it is a creek is the riffles in the water in the center of the photo. Since the water is so clear, you can't really tell if you didn't know. In fact, my friends were commenting on that....Chris said that she thought the water should be at the bottom because otherwise the rocks were falling on Rocky's head. It wouldn't hurt him as they are painted Tyvek.

The water in the quilt itself is various layers of different sheers. You can actually see the bottom fabric in through the water. The grasses are different specialty yarns and two fringed trims.



This is a detail of a quilt I did for the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge. Information on how I actually did it is here. The challenge guidelines were to do a still life with a plant using packaging as an inspiration and color scheme.

The plant is a money plant, also called honesty (Lunaria annua) and the packaging was taken from a perfume offered in Anthropologie.




Here's the overall.

Another piece I did for the FFFC is this one. I meant it to be fun and funky.... It is a quilted rendition of cellular junction (a connection between cells, usually skin cells.).

While I was working on this and another for the microscopy challenge one of my co-quilters in the local Batty Binder's guild said "Is this supposed to be fun?" The answer for me is yes.

I do challenges because I think they make me go outside of what I usually do, or think about things in a different way. They also give me deadlines without which I am afraid I would produce very little in deed.

In fact, I joined the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge to see if I could get over my tendency to over think things.....So far, it isn't working well, except for the microscopy one...But, I'll just start whacking away at them and get it so it is very quick.

So...this is fun for me.

What isn't fun is another challenge I had to face today. Just as I was sitting down to write this, I got a call from my teenaged daughter. "Mom, I sort of rear ended a guy." I told her to sit tight and I'd be right there.

When I got there, there was already a police officer there. I was a little mystified though as I looked at the rear of the silver van she hit with our silver van.

I always carry a camera with me, usually for quilting notes, but in this case I'm glad I do...much better than a cell phone camera in my mind.







Can you see the damage? The blue marks are the transfers from our license plate to the bumper of the car she hit. There weren't really scratches, just the color transfer. He said that he thought she was on the cell phone until he realized that she had to get it out of her purse and turn it on to call me (talking on the cellphone while driving is a big no-no to me).

It's really too bad. While the guy said he wasn't hurt to the officer in the beginning at the end, he said he was going to drive over to the hospital and get checked out because he had a headache. However, he refused to be checked out on the spot or to be driven over. Of course, alarm bells are ringing all over the place for me.

She will have to go to court and will probably love her license for a while as she's almost 17 and hasn't had her license for a year yet. I am going to make her pay for the traffic ticket and any increase in the insurance. The Police officer was apologetic that he had to turn it in as he was sort of mystified at the damage as well.

I count is as a good learning experience for my daughter as I have gotten after her for not slowing down before she needs to. She tends to rely on her brakes too much. I'm grateful that she wasn't hurt...and that the guy didn't appear to be hurt (although he did show me his broken fingernail which broke on the coffee cup he was holding). Still....this is a challenge I'd rather not do.