Altered: Blank Canvas

My husband Larry has been on a sabbatical for the last year.  During this time we slept in late in the mornings, read the paper and discussed the news at our leisure, alternated between watching the today show and CCN, shared a pot of coffee, and just spent time together.  With no children in the house, this was the first time it has just been the two of us in eight years of marriage.  Well, if you don’t count the cat child, better known as Ally the queen, and Deuce the dog we are all alone.

Now Larry has gone back to work and I am all alone.  I began thinking about what I would do with this blank canvas of time several months ago.  When I am painting or working on a collage I cover up my canvas or blank page with paint or glue colored papers just to get rid of the plain white unimaginative and boring starting point.  I guess I could cover myself with paint; get a little messy with the glue, paper, and embellishments but it would be a little hard to explain when I needed to leave the house.  The artistic part of my brain has taken a break making this transition time even harder for me.  

Patience.  I keep telling myself this over and over.  Maybe I just need a short rest from everything to regroup and recharge.  I can’t sleep at night but I can’t work.  I watch a favorite craft show on television during the morning but it doesn’t inspire me.  I wander into and out of craft and scrapbook stores but, again, I am not inspired.

Three weeks after starting this blog entry I finally have an idea:  I am making mini memory quilts for my sister Sharron’s four children, Bryon, Chuck, David, and Kim.  They are all grown with babies of their own and one with a grandchild.  I have old photos of my parents and each of my siblings when we were small children that I have transferred to fabric.  I am using luxurious textured upholstery fabrics in reds, dark gray wool, ribbons, netting, embellishments, eyelets, and twisted wire to hang them.  I will machine quilt them since I didn’t inherit my mothers ability to quilt by hand.  I just wanted my nephews and niece to have a special handmade memento just for them.