In love with it…

by smallestforest

blue doily nearly done

Couldn’t wait till it was done to take a photograph (the light was fading fast, no photographs on this boat after 6 p.m. as the solar-powered fluorescent lights make everything look sick and dying) so you can still see where I’ve drawn the design with white Chinagraph. But I have, since snapping this, completed the faux doily.

It’s asymmetrical because, as usual, I penciled the design in as I went. I thought that would make me hate it but, no, it’s actually given the design a really quirky, handmade, folk-art look that I have fallen in love with.

Like many of the things I make, I have absolutely no idea what to do with this embroidery. Someone on stitchin’ fingers, a month ago, asked about my (still unfinished) crewel-tapestry-inspired embroidery, “What is the piece’s destination?” That flummoxed me for a bit. Destination? *shrug* I dunno. Since when does beauty have to have a purpose or destination? I just like doing it. John Ruskin was the one who said

“Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless: peacocks and lilies, for instance.”

Think I’ll just keep it around, maybe hoop and hang it, stare at it until I get tired of it. Then, who knows? Sell it? Give it away? I have been known to make rather sad and underwhelming potholders of embroideries that took me years to finish. (Don’t worry, I won’t do that anymore! When you’re 20 you really believe you’re going to live forever!) The piece, itself, will let me know when it has chosen its ‘destination’. A creative work may enter the world through your life, but then it takes on a life of its own. Kind of like children…”the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.” (Kahlil Gibran)
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