Jury, please be sworn in

Here's the Big Doorway piece, possibly finished.  But I would very much like your take on this.  

Does it need more work, and if so, where?  the Dorset buttons are removable, by the way, but they were in innumerable configurations before I finally decided this was good.  I'm just not sure yet if this is finished, but I wish it were!  I've looked at it so much I've lost the capacity to see it for the moment.

And here's the Vilene piece, started in split stitch, in hand dyed threads, that linen thread I've got so much mileage out of again. 

And, to show that there's a great value in letting yourself be a helpless prawn of art, I've realized that these little Vilene pieces, which I fervently hope will work, the three little line drawings translated into stitching, well, you know that dyed wallhanging I showed you yesterday?  

Yes, I realized that the lower part of that is where these pieces will probably belong, yay.  These are the pieces that will be rinsed to make the Vilene vanish, leaving only two layers of netting stitched together.  Very transparent and needing a context.

Been wondering all along if all these moving parts would eventually settle into a relationship. But this can only happen if you plunge in, forsaking all other activities, long enough to let it transpire, if you follow me.  And I have other obligations and tend to try to fit everything in, not always a wise move.

So some things are on hold for now and I'm glad to see the results starting to come in.  A friend stopped by last night, admired the doorway piece in rather a puzzled way (!) and said, how passionate you are!  and how focused.  I think a lot of people have lost that ability.  We get so quickly bored.  Well, maybe.  But yes, I do tend to go off the charts with enthusiasm. To think it is to do it.  For better or worse.

And since the local artists' group show in September will be on the theme of local color, this wallhanging, if it's done in time, might be a good entry, since the dyes were all from very local materials! literally local color, from local maple trees.

But I also have friends to thank for help they've given even if they didn't realize it at the time. Case in point: a while back at a stitch in, a comment from Carol P., in the course of a conversation about setting aside a block of time to read a huge and important book, as I did the week before Handsome Son was born, sat under a tree for a week and read War and Peace.  Wonderful week, and just the right way to read W and P.

When I commented that I thought that might be the last week I would ever have where I could just do one thing! Carol pointed out that I could do that now, couldn't I?  whereupon I said, oh no, I have obligations.  

But later I thought, wait, I think she has a point.  I can indeed set aside all others and make art in a block of time.  None of my current obligations is a matter of life and death, unlike all the years of caregiving.  I had got so used to thinking in those dramatic terms without realizing it.  

So I did make a block, this summer, in fact, of time for what I need to do.  And thank you, Carol!  I don't think she reads this blog, but maybe word will get to her...thank you for suggesting I quietly attend to one thing for a while!  the sun will still rise, and the world will wag just fine even if I'm absent from some groups for a while.

Reason number 12,356 why I'm glad I joined EGA! the embroiderers' guild.