The Hand Stitched Doll

May I tell you what it is like to sit here in my studio hand stitching a doll?  Music is quietly playing.  Outside it is windy and cold and pretty much miserable.  There is a heating vent at my feet.  There is fabric and needle and thread. 

If I turn off the music there is only the sound of the wind outside and the thread moving through the fabric.  The doll rests in one hand with my fingers pinching the areas to be stitched.  It is heaven, of the oldest and most valued kind.  I feel the connection of early sewers sitting in front of a fire place - perhaps only a lantern to light their way. 

Meanwhile stories float through my mind and heart making a place for this soon-to-be finished hand stitched doll. 

"A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live." - Bertrand Russell

Here we go again...

 

I find myself at a crossroads right now – you know the kind where a directional sign all of a sudden appears to beckon me.  I’ve been here before – many times. Through book arts and beading, punchneedle and embroidered stitcheries and of course in between here and there, doll making in one form or another.

So what direction are the signs showing?  Punchneedle is dominating them – not the traditional designs mind you – but experimentation - finding out the possibilities of adding fabric or paper  or even metal to the design - thinking about adding natural objects and found objects to a piece or two.

I think there is something within me that yearns to go back to the kind of work that is a bit more portable.  It can be stopped and started with little conflict.  It can be worked on in little bits of time or longer time spans.  Perhaps it’s the time of the year – that time when I long to be outside on the screened in porch, or sitting at the desk in my studio that looks out upon the side garden and its small pond and beautiful plantings.  I want the flexibility of movement, the freedom to stop and start as life presents me with the perfect day to be out and about.

 Are you in for another journey with me?  We’ll see where this particular path takes me at this particular time.

"The good life is a process, not a state of being.  It is a direction not a destination." - Carl Rogers

Collecting Faces

I'm collecting faces these days.  Looking at expressions and thinking about what each face tells me.  Someday soon I shall make up a story for each of them and present it in cloth and stitch.

"After a certain numer of years, our faces become our biographies." - Cynthia Ozick