Skidding in...!

I took an unscheduled break for a few weeks (you may have noticed). My muse had fled - due, I think to a mild depression I was experiencing. Essentially, I was pre-mourning my future health issues.  I let myself have a wallow, but a few days before Christmas, said to myself "Self, that's enough now!Time to pick up the ball."

So, since then I got creative by making some new decorations for the Christmas tree, making SIX cozies for my new tablet  (because you never know what kind of mood you'll be in); but also, actually finishing "the boy".

I know it seemed like I only had a bit to do -  (I sure thought so!) - but it turned out, that the weight of this sucker was SO. MUCH. that after I put my usual envelope closing on, the  weight of it actually pulled the seams apart. So I had to re-quilt what I thought would be only the centre portion, but as that skewed the rest of it, I actually had to re-quilt the entire thing. (Augh!)

(original fabric, marked off for quilting, before painting.)

And then I had to make the small, but painstaking "repairs" (adding more feathers, fussing with the neckline, making the bat [that bat, as innocuous as it looks, took HOURS and HOURS which I will delineate in another post]).

But on to the actual piece!

It began its life as a piece about my son, Issac, who died 19 years ago. You may remember I started it in the spring - the start date was actually on what would have been his 21st birthday. But I didn't want to make a cherub, so I aged him using my face and those of my other sons at various ages to make him an older child.

But as I worked on the wings, I realized that I was not only grieving the death of my own son, but all of our sons, who are taken from us because of the world we live in - whether its an accident, a stray bullet, a predator, or a George Zimmerman.

And so I called it "Remembrance Day"

...

All alone I didn't like the feeling
All alone I sat and cried
All alone I had to find some meaning
In the center of the pain I felt inside

All alone I came into this world
All alone I will someday die
Solid stone is just sand and water, baby
Sand and water, and a million years gone by

I will see you in the light of a thousand suns
I will hear you in the sound of the waves
I will know you when I come, as we all will come
Through the doors beyond the grave

... 

All alone I came into this world
All alone I will someday die
Solid stone is just sand and water, baby
Sand and water and a million years gone by  ...*

I hope you enjoy your new year's eve celebrations if that's what you do - and if you take this time to reflect on the past year(s) or make plans for a new one - I hope you find much to celebrate and look forward to.

I'll see you on Wednesday with my annual "Year In Review".

'Till then!



*From Sand & Water by Beth Neilson Chapman"