Ephemera: First Quarter

You may remember that back in November, I decided to begin a year-long stitching project, called "Ephemera", that would do nothing more than hold whatever stitches I felt like making that week, along with a sentence or phrase overheard in that week.

I can`t believe that it's already been a full quarter, but so it has!
It began as this:

(I haven`t decided yet which orientation the finished piece will be in.)

The sentences/phrases that are contained in this first quarter are, in no particular order:

1. Love makes it all go around
2. May our love and thankfulness wing you on your way. Nelson Mandela
3. We're falling in love again
4. This river I step in is not the river in which I stand
5. The sun rises, and the world keeps relentlessly turning
6. At the end is my beginning
7. She didn't give up her seat
8. You're made of metal, but it must be mercury: stillness doesn't suit you
9. When I die I will go to jazz
10. You look more Chinese than Korean
11. Season's Greetings or Merry Christmas: whatever, thank you for saying something nice
12. love is not two people gazing at each other, but two people looking in the same direction

So, there was a lot of love this quarter, which is very nice (smile). And also:

4.      Inscribed above a bridge I cross every day on my way to work. A different line of the poem is hidden in different places throughout Leslieville (the neighbourhood in Toronto in which I live); but I've never found them all so am never sure what the line means. I've made plenty of guesses over the years, but without seeing the poem in full, I can never be sure!  Update: I found the poem - it's in the comments - its' the title of the poem. :)

5.      a snippet of a conversation between a co-worker and I after his best friend passed away and in which he and I commiserated about how the world just churns on and pays no attention to the fact that every day is an affront, every one else's indifference a slap in the  face. 

7.      The theme of a conversation between a couple who were (extremely annoyingly!) engaged in performance parenting at my doctor's office. (Note to said couple and people like them: We. don't. CARE. how awesome you think your parenting is, and your smug self-satisfaction only makes you look like jerks. So there.)

9.      From Ishmael Reed's wonderful poem of the same name. A copy of it hangs on my inspiration board - some day I will make a piece based on it. 

10.    A snippet of an overheard conversation on the streetcar one day. This phrase (from a white woman to a young Korean woman) was the LEAST egregious, least racist thing she said during the course of the conversation if you can believe it!

All the others are just bits of overheard conversations or quotes I saw on Facebook and the like.

I think the next quarter I'm not only going to make abstract stitches, but may indulge in some flora and fauna as is my wont. :)

See you on Friday with a link post!

P.S.  I had a question about the words on FB - someone wondering if the words were mnemonic or when I was going to add them  - and now Beth in the comments, put "words" in quotation marks.

The words are actually there! They're stitched in white thread, and are meant to be invisible from a distance (I guess I've been successful! lol); but when I do my sort of weekly posts about the squares, I do a close up of the words so you can see them. :)