This post has been a long time coming! The title refers to this year's theme for Textilia 3 and all of us in the group have been wrestling with it for many months.
I decided to base my work around my dear Auntie Jean, who sadly passed away last year. I wanted to explore how dementia effected her in the last few years. She was a fiercely independent lady who managed the family farm along with her brothers. In clearing her house, I found plenty of old linens and some, like this tray cloth, that she might have embroidered herself. I loved the rather rough and ready repairs on the drawn thread work border.
I plan to base the main body of work on the dahlias that she grew every year for as long as I can remember. They are bright and bold and cheerful, but just recently she couldn't remember their name, referring to them as "those yellow flowers".
As a way of getting out of my creative rut, I started to stitch a portrait of her. I've tried to capture the hint of a smile and the mischievous twinkle in her eye. I'm not sure if I've succeeded, but it has got me working again.
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