Coping with the heat

Well. summer should be winding down but it isn't.  It is actually worse than our usual summer where we get hot days (with some cool nights) for about 4 days and then a storm rolls in and the temperature drops 10-15 degrees.  Then it starts up again.
Not this time - we are having hot days (but not ridiculously hot - only about in the low to mid 30s (C), mid 90s (F)) but the nights are staying warm, and the days are gradually warming up more and more.  It is forecast to be 37C in a couple of days and the nights are progressively warmer - they do cool down a bit, of course. It is all very enervating though.

As I have already said, I am doing an online workshop for the Traveller's Blanket.  I have decided to use pieces of fabric that I have left over from my years of playing around with textiles.  Some pieces go back to the 80s, when I did a bit of silk painting.  Some are from quilts I have made, screen printing, needle felting with the embellisher, silk dyeing, silk paper, fabric painting, sewing classes, etc.  I was going to put in some knitting but it was too bulky.  Most of the fabric selection is sorted, I have left some empty spots either for new stuff I do in the meantime (it is going to take a while to finish) or just to leave empty, to show that my journey is not finished.

I am now up to the hand embroidery. I have started because I  visited a friend who has very efficient air conditioning but it has just been too hot at home lately to have a blanket on my lap and be doing hand embroidery.  So I will try again in a week or so, or when I visit my friend.

I have decided to try sewing patterns that I have not used before, or it was so long ago that I have forgotten them. And I don't seem to be able to be tidy with it, my embroidery wants to wander.  But it is a journey, so it doesn't matter. I did do hand embroidery a bit in the 60s and 70s, maybe even the early 80s but that is (gasp) about 30 years ago.  So I have forgotten how to do a lot of the stitches.

Too much on my mind

Not only am I working on tapestry design and making, I have also enrolled for a Dijanne Cevaal online workshop, the Traveller's Blanket.  (It was on the front cover of Quilting Arts Magazine recently.)  This is not just a technique workshop, it is about having a story to tell and then using that story to influence how the blanket develops.  So there is a lot of thought involved - as well as the actual dyeing and sewing. My story hasn't started yet, there are just nebulous ideas floating around - in with all the other ideas, very confusing.

I have dyed the fabrics and sewn them together to make the quilt part, now I just have to start thinking about what fabrics I will use for the appliqué and what embroidery threads and stitches I will use.  Simple!
I am actually looking forward to the sewing, it will be hand sewing that I can do while watching tv (as long as it isn't sport).  It is not really the weather to be holding a blanket on your lap but autumn will be here soon and the weather will be more conducive to it - I hope.

And then there is the attempt to do some daily doodles and lino cutting.  And the fortnightly playday group.

I miss the textile design course I did, the discussions of how people are developing their ideas, how they are going about making the pieces, etc.  I think it focussed me as well as gave me other ideas and approaches to think about.  But our assignments usually worked in conjunction with each other and I didn't have too many ideas floating around (well, not all that often).  Although I enjoy the challenges of the different groups I am in, I need to compartmentalise them, or reduce the number I am trying to develop at one time.