Doodle Quilt 1

My world has turned upside down when Paul, my dh, fell on his head when setting up a show in MD the day before Thanksgiving 2017.  He has had so many setbacks, it isn't funny.   He would get better, and then something would happen.  He broke his pelvis falling out of a wheelchair at the second nursing home.  He had an operation to fix that.  He spent a week in intensive care.  A doctor actually asked me if he should have a feeding tube!  I wouldn't make that decision.  Paul said "No way!"  He has been in three different hospitals and two different nursing homes several times.  Finally June 1st he was released from the nursing home.  Now he has been released from home health care and PT, only to find that he can't start outpatient neurologic physical therapy until August 7th.  I called the home health care and asked to have him reinstated.  They now need to get new papers to have him covered for the next two weeks while we wait.  The family doctor isn't available to talk to.  All I can do is call and talk to a machine.  The new family doctor didn't know why Paul was getting home health care.  She didn't know anything until Paul was admitted to the local hospital in January when he til his head a second time and didn't make sense three days later. But, he is better now.  He isn't falling.  He is doing his exercises.  He can actually walk twenty steps without the rollator.  He even cooked dinner one night.  In two months, we are doing the first show since his initial fall. 

I am finally starting to get back to working at my art dyeing rovings and wool fabrics and working on a new piece.

Where do my ideas come from?  I have this weird fascination with images.  What does this look like to you? It is a photo of bubbles in the sink next to my washing machine.  The bubbles are constantly changing, but taking a photo of them freezes them in time. What if you could do an art piece based on this photo.  I would start with the large bubbles by sewing beads on my hand dyed wool fabric, adding some wool fibers where it is light around the bubbles...and move on from there.  The piece takes on a life of its own. Your piece may not look anything like the photo of the bubbles, but it gets you going. This work is meditative. You don’t think in words while working on it, but it brings you peace.  When you run out of an area to embellish, you can add borders and continue on or not.

The hand dyed wool that I dye is heavy enough to embroider without having to use a hoop.  You can felt or sew different blocks together. Felting with a felting machine (12 needles) makes it easy to attach the blocks together but also give you the option of tearing them apart if you change your mind.

This is the beginning of the fantasy quilt that I've been doodling on. It will give you an idea of how I work.

This is what the quilt looks like today. It isn't finished yet.  These are the correct colors.