Sewing in a circle

Starting sewing downthe circles yesterday, and plan to keep going today. My hands were very sore during the night, so I'm not sure how much hand sewing I'll be able to do. DH plans to bake bread today-- sour dough--so I'll end up spending most of the day staying out of the way downstairs anyway.

Both the Dragon quilt and the "bike dump" qult are very different from what I've been doing lately. Both of these are in response to a challenge and critique offered through the internet group. I've been responsive to the suggestions etc, because I want to exhibit the quilts. But this all gives me cause to wonder if this is truly what my heart is wanting to create, or if I'm just happy creating something/anything. The original ideas are hard work--it's so much easier to let myself be guided by the thoughts of others. Or is the easiest road just to keep sticking artificial flowers on collages?

I've signed up for the workshop being offered by the local guild. This is a very small quilted collage, based on a photo of my choosing. I've chosen a picture of a pond with water lilies taken at Buchart Gardens. I'm not sure how I'm going to develop it, but then that's what the class is all about. While going through my photos, I also found a couple of tree bark. Now I want to see how I can do this with the low water immersion dyeing. (Ordered my dyes from Toronto, and my friend will bring them back with her.) Going through photos also brought back some of the techniques and ideas I learned in the class with Margaret Ven Erve, in 2004. Looking back I realized how often I've referred back to that class, and how I've followed through on some of the ideas that came out of that class--although not exactly in the way they were originally envisioned.