From The Nest

Back from Michigan-Back to work

I am back from a week in Michigan with the Captain. We had a great visit with our youngest daughter Sarah and her family...lots of fun! It took some doing for us to get home with all the crazy storms they had out in the mid-west. Our flight was delayed and delayed and finally we made it home on Tuesday. I am slammed with work!! I mean it is incredible the amount of product development I have to accomplish this week. It is Memorial Day weekend. Sometimes everything hits at once and that's the case for me right now. I am not complaining at all. Just saying it will be challenging to get it all done and keep everyone happy. It is also our official planting season here in New England, so the tomatoes and other plants need to be planted along with all our window boxes and new perennials I bought to add to the garden. The above design is from my new "Four Seasons" collection from Andover Fabrics and this is part of the Fall group. I just love how this group came out and I have decided to have a quilt made out of this fabric when it is printed. Just a quick hello since I have to get back to work! Lot of new items coming out this summer at the Atlanta Gift show so I will be sure to post photos when I return.

Working on New Designs

Things are always busy here at the Carol Eldridge Design Studio. I am developing new designs for all sorts of product lines, including several for new licensing clients. This fun summer design is part of my latest fabric collection called "Four Seasons" for Andover Fabrics, debuting this week at the Spring Quilt Market in Salt Lake City. Keeping up with all the design work and life is often a challenge, but I think passion goes a long way to helping me meet those challenges and successfully continue my artistic journey. When you love something you do you tend to work at it tirelessly because it means so much to you. I wake up each day eager to get to the studio and get to work. I love what I do.

Persistence

Here in New England it's that time of year once again where the backyard is bustling with birds fluttering around building their nests. I love to watch them. I sit each morning looking out past the deck at the trees and bushes while I eat my cereal, watching them fly back and forth and in and out carrying sticks and twigs. It always amazes me how busy they are, how directed they are, as if someone is orchestrating their every move. One seems to stay in the nest, padding it down, weaving the twigs and sticks around in a perfect circle, blending them to form a safe place, tamping it with their beak and their bodies. The other is the hunter and gatherer, bringing in the moss and ribbons and strings they find exploring in my garden. They work in unison, with a single-minded goal to build their nest.
Their persistence really is so admirable and I think it is contagious to watch it being played out each day for me. These little creatures wake up extremely early each morning and work tirelessly all day long until the sun finally sets, when it seems that then they quiet down for the night. The next day it's the same thing all over again. Persistence is a wonderful thing. I think when you focus on something that you want badly enough, create a strategy and work towards fulfilling that goal, your journey is motivated by your passion to reach that goal. Like the birds, their love of building together this little nest home to lay their eggs, then to nurture their fledglings is somehow similar the same journey we are on as artists. We fly around, fluttering here and there, gathering clients and inspiration to create new works so we too can make a home for our families, earning money doing something we love. We try different mediums, we weave together various interesting things we come across in our travels, we are constantly on the lookout for new and unusual materials to use in our creations, making them special and unique. Ultimately, we want to create something new and different that we can be proud to put our names on. I think in my next life I will come back as a little bird. I love that they are so pro-active, that they twist their little heads all around and are so aware of the world around them, all the time chirping and singing and seemingly so happy. They flutter and fly and twist and shout and sing and seem to have so much fun together. Then, at the end of a long and busy and always productive day, they settle in for the night in their tiny work-in-progress, huddled together, keeping warm, sleeping and resting to make way for another new day. It just doesn't get much better than that! Tweet!