Inspiration strikes!

It has been a good day. I am now typing this with hiccups as I drank my drink too quickly so every now and then my hands will leap off the keyboard and I will write something quite unacceptable! It is quite disconcerting as I never know when it is going to happen! Anyway back to the tale. I had a student/friend over for coffee this morning and it was fun. I find Yvonne quite fascinating to talk to as she spent her early years in South Africa and always has such good tales to tell. Well talking to her about mice and men and quilts I got quite inspired and so later I got out my sketchbook and looked at some pictures I'd taken of lilies in the garden. I'd already done some preliminary work on the shapes of the petals and I thought I'd just carry on from where I had left off. I had even tried printing out some of the shapes on fabric. In fact I became so ingrossed in doing this that I didn't even notice that I was going to be late for work....I made it by the skin of my teeth. This evening before dinner I finished off some of the ideas and ended up with one I think I'll run with. Strangely it is now far removed from lily petals and looks more like a palm tree. I even added in a background of sun and sea and put a trunk in. Needs a lot more work before it will be ready for auditioning fabrics and then it will need mock ups doing to see if they work. I can already see the quilting I'll be doing and all in all I'm quite excited. It is so good to be back to normal. To be turning on a sixpence and still be producing the work. Long may it continue! This is why I think sketch books are so very necessary and useful because in moments of the doldrums they provide a wind which gets me going. And I have fun doing them even with no end product in sight. When I was teaching City and Guilds classes the bit I enjoyed most was the making of workbooks for the Design module. The students had to be quite inventive in how they presented their ideas and designs. I think teaching for the City and Guilds certificate is one of the reasons I have so many techniques under my belt as one had to be able to turn one's hand to ANYTHING!

Well in a fortnight's time I will be back teaching. It is incredible how quickly this summer has gone. Lots has happened and if I want to remind myself of exactly what I only have to read back in the blog. But on the other hand I haven't achieved as much as I hoped to. Soon it will be Halloween and then Christmas. Now will I be organised for either of these events? Probably not! Am I worried? No!

Tomorrow I am going to start making up CQ packs for sale and finish off the appliqe part on the last block for the quilt. Then at the weekend I am going to dye. And finish quilting the blocks. I'm not going to overload myself with any more than that to do as then if I do achieve it all I'll feel really pleased which is always good for morale! And if I get any spare time I can continue with the art work. All sounds good to me!