Thursday, September 18, 2008

More Distractions and Pondering


Here's the other thing keeping me from my creative journey this week. When I got back from my weekend trip, the yellow plums were ripening and dropping as I had feared. I spend a little time each morning picking up and disposing of windfalls (the first day back, I picked up three bucket's full; today it was not even one). I pick what I can reach standing on the ground, just what releases without pulling. But I could see so many ripe ones far above my head, a few falling as I worked. So the last two days I've grabbed a limb and shook resulting in a heavy rain of fruit. Since I probably will can the majority of these, I'm not too concerned with bruising. I just don't have the time or desire to pick what must be hundreds of plums properly.

I was overcome by a sense of insecurity today. I think it's a combination of working on the Art Exhibit stuff and being out of the studio for so long. I've appliqued outside on my azalea mosaic for an hour the last two mornings, thinking that would restore some calm, but it hasn't been working. I'm just good and unsettled. I got a call that my machine was ready to pick up, and the insecurities just heightened. I wasn't expecting it back this soon. I wasn't expecting him to be able to fix it. I was expecting a call next week to say it was going back to the manufacturer. Would I arrive to pick it up only to hear him say once again he could find nothing wrong and couldn't make it do what it does incessantly for me? Would I find myself in an unwanted confrontation?

He had found something, a burr on the feed dog, but admitted that he still couldn't understand how the thread was whipping back there to catch on it. And again, it hadn't performed for him as it does for me. Well, sometimes it's the smallest things that create the biggest problems. I decided to set it right up, pretend it was trouble free again and do some stitching on my August TIFC.


Here you can see what I decided to do as a first step in resolving my quilting dilemma around the central motif. I didn't like the way the green frame seemed to disappear and got the bright idea to add the same sort of "frills" along the inner edge of it as I put on the inner curve of the feathers in the outer corners. I think I really like this. But I need to do more stitching and as you can see, I'm pondering threads to do it in. I've also set out some of the beads I think I'll be using. I may use some purple thread to outline the applique and fill in some of the space around it, or I may just use black thread. I'm about ready to go back in and work on it some more.

Oh, and as to whether the machine is behaving while doing my free-motion quilting? I thought it was, quilted nearly all along the green frame before it hung up on me. Sigh. Well, at least I got farther than I was getting before I took it in. I'll keep working with it over the weekend, then call the repairman on Monday to see what he wants to do next.

In spite of this snag, this little bit of sewing did more to lighten my mood than anything this week. And afterwards, I relaxed outside enjoying what may be the last beautiful warm day we'll see for awhile. A last gasp of summer perhaps, and I'll take it.

2 comments:

Nora and James McDowell said...

On the "plum" subject: when we were kids we had a lovely big peach plum tree and how we would "pick" was by laying a sheet under it and shaking.
It keeps the fruit from getting pierced by things.
Nora

The Idaho Beauty said...

The first time I just yanked on the branch to see what would happen. The next time I was smart enough to lay down a sheet!

My neighbor actually gave me the idea to try the shaking. I'd told her about how the deer had stripped the tree last year and she countered that bears sometimes climb up them and shake the tree to drop the fruit! Like I needed to know that!