Going in circles?

The FiberArt Northeast group I belong to is preparing for another gallery show at the Mahopac Public Library, and our pieces need to be finished and stitched to the canvases by May 6th. I have been ruminating over my idea for my piece and running in many different directions. The basic theme I've chosen to go with is "sunflowers," and I began by playing with some of the new techniques I've learned over the last 6 months or so: thread sketching, papercloth, printing photos onto Lutradur, altering fabric with paint and paintstiks. Above are some of the collage elements I came up with, but I haven't been able to get them all into one pleasing collage.

This week, I'm taking another tack by piecing flower-like elements out of various yellow, orange, gold and brown fabrics. The first one I made is fairly large and I thought I might simply use this as the basis for the collage, and add other elements as embellishments.

Then I made the three smaller flowers this morning and I think I might make more of these and make more of a garden-like piece, adding some of the elements from the first photo.

At one point I felt so stuck with the sunflower idea that I abandoned it and played with some completely unrelated subjects, like the brightly colored squares to the left and the seahorse thread sketch on the right. Aagh! I don't think I work very well under pressure. It's hard to be creative on demand! If I get desperate, I may resort to showing a piece I finished in the fall of '08 (you can see a portion of it here). At least that will take the pressure off and help me loosen up a little!