Barn O'Copia

I had a lot of momentum working on this quilt last week, when we had to leave town suddenly to attend the memorial service for a friend who passed away unexpectedly. It was in Pennsylvania, and having other business on the east coast we decided to drive, ten hours one day and five the next.

Since I can't read or work in the car without getting car sick, I tried something different. Russ told me about another artist who visualizes ideas in early in the morning in bed with his eyes closed. So I reclined in the truck wrapped in my fluffy pillows and visualized two new quilt ideas, one actually in color.

Pennsylvania is really beautiful country to drive through -- lots of scenic farms, so I also collected some ideas for my rather barren-looking farm by trying to shoot blurry photos of barns out the car window. Russ said I shouldn't be doing this while driving though, and took the camera away. I'll have to add a silo to my barn because I saw them everywhere.

Some telephone poles and a dented mailbox might be fun to add too and help create that empty-country-road look that I imagined when I started this project.

Here's how I left things last week. I'm still struggling with what alien flight uniforms look like, but if it were up to me would include mock turtlenecks, my favorite wardrobe basic. I've also re-drawn and re-cut that silly road twice. Sometimes what looks okay in a really small drawing doesn't look so good when it's blown up to about five feet across. Maybe the telephone poles will help.