After thinking and reading and thinking about my solid fabric stitching and why I might have done that I have come back to the old self confidence trick and self belief.  I am back working on a "Sticks and Stones" series which are much more mine.

In this series I am thinking about life and memory and how a memory can be shaped by later events and can become a false memory.  And as I add layers of paint, stitch, sand and mend the memories can change and become more  or less ​hurtful.  "Sticks and Stones" was a very common response in my family.

And the pieces take more thinking and effort than doing something someone else has done before.  Each piece is 4" X 4" square and is made from pieces ripped from a cotton sheet after it was painted with bituminous paint.

​And I have learned that people, mostly women, darned and mended fine fabrics etc with human hair.

I haven't decided yet how to stop "a rush of blood to the head".  I still have my bin of solid fabrics and my stitched stripes,  I still have some of my books that led me off on a tangent,  I still have times when I think what I am doing is not good and, maybe, this is always going to happen.

I would love to know how you avoid "a rush of blood to the head".  Or do you just let it happen?  For now I want to keep working on this series and ignore distractions.  

Yesterday I suffered from a rush of blood to the head. I have beeb thinking and absorbing my workshop in Ballarat with Beverly Ayling-Smith, thinking about memory and truth, and working on some ideas and research. Very slow and very frustrating.

Suddenly I rushed into my bin of solid coloured cotton fabrics and ironed and cut and stitched strips into stripes.

I found a range of glorious colours in lights and darks and made a series of striped fabrics ready to make post and rail blocks.

I was quite excited and looked at Maria Shell's work. I love her colour palette and what she does with small pieces of fabric.

By the end of the day I am thinking what am I doing and in the evening I read my colour workbook and got excited.

And then most of the night I thought about the direction of my work - what am I really doing? And today I have my beautiful pieces of 4 X 4 ins sheeting painted with bitumous paint, sanded, stitched and painted with whitw emulsion paint. They are the beginnings of a piece called "Sticks and Stones"

They are all torn 4 X 4 in pieces, and are intended to be a series of units that will make up a whole. They are hand size and reflect the intimacies and hurts in life.

By now I am wondering about my coloured pieces. I still love them. They are sort of a detour. What do I do with these detours? Just get more petrol? Get rid of the coloured cloth? Decide on my focus and get rid of everything else?

What do you do when you have a rush of blood to the head? Do you even have them?