the joys of travel - updated

Yes, I started this post two weeks ago, but once I left Atlanta I didn't get home until 2:30 Monday morning.

This was as far as I got.

July 14, 2019 sometime around 10:pm

Here I am in the Delta Sky Club at the Atlanta airport. I have not yet eaten, but I probably will because when I get home at 2:am I will not feel like cooking. Don't ask.

Flight out of Nashville was delayed, so to make a very long story short, we were all rebooked on the 11:32 flight to West Palm Beach, which gets in at 1:30 am.

We did actually get to Atlanta in time to make our original flight but they had given our seats away. Overbooked, so putting us on the waitlist wasn't going to go anywhere.

I will Uber home from the airport because Phil, who was planning to pick me up at 10-something pm, will be in dreamland.

DELTA - are you listening?? I have loved you until now - but our romance is over.

Nonetheless, my happy week with Helene, Bob, and their wonderful niece Gigi was worth everything. I worked with some fat eighths of Helene's gorgeous hand-dyes exclusively, improvising (of course) as I went along. This is what am taking home with me. I think I'm done with it, since I'm pretty much out of those fabrics. I am happy with this little piece and will finish it when I get home.

Here I am two weeks later. (July 29).

In the meantime, I have been laboring in the studio - to no avail - and am feeling frustrated because something I am trying to do isn't working. After days and days, I took a break and ironed /rearranged my bins of African fabrics (3 bins full! ) . How did I get so many African fabrics? I brought back quite a few when I taught at the South African National Quilt Festival a few years ago. Here is some Shweshwe that is two-sided. I've used most of the other Shewshwe that I bought in Durban and wish I had taken an empty suitcase with me.

I brought back scraps of African Batiks I bought in Cape Town, and I bought some when I was in Paris a couple of years ago: the garment district is full of them. Here is a wax print I couldn't resist.

And my friend Susan gifted me a load of fabrics she had and wasn't going to use. Oh, my! A surfeit of riches! Thank you, Susan! They've all been washed, ironed, and folded.

I think I should bring some of my stash for students to use in the "Ethnic Fabrics/Modern Quilts" class which I am working on. If you haven't made a quilt that combines those fabrics with each other, with "modern" fabrics, and/or with solids, you haven't lived! They can make a very exciting quilt!

Just writing about it makes me want to go back to the studio and play again. I have to disengage myself from the idea I had in my head which isn't working. It doesn't pay for me to force things - ever. An idea in the head is a recipe for frustration -- at least, for me.

We'll see what comes next!