It's Just Too Precious

I have been making little fabric birds for awhile now. I've made them in various ways and out of different materials. I've never embroidered on them though and decided it was time to try that out. I made two out of a nice dark blue and a tried new shapes for the tail. I was really pleased with them. Then came time to stitch on them and I got stuck. I wasn't sure what to do. No, that's not really true, I wasn't sure of the perfect thing thing to do. So they sat and I occupied my time with making cat blankets for the local Humane Society. That was a good thing to do but really it was a way to avoid making a decision. I have been in this place before, too many times to count and frankly, it's getting annoying.

I was pondering my inaction as I was showering (often my best insights happen in the shower) and I was reminded of my friend Susan. She is a textile artist that I am in a critique group with and she thrives on experimentation and her work changes, expands and gets more exciting every time I see her. I realized that I was thinking of those two birds as the only birds I will ever make. They had become precious. If you saw my fabric stash you would know how absurd that was. I needed to make more birds and try as many things as I can think of so I headed to the studio.

As I was going there I remembered all of the vintage embroidered pillowcases in my stash. They are very worn and not good for anything except recycling into something else and the embroidery was the perfect thing to use for my birds. I made two and then found some commercially embroidered fabric so I made one with that too.  It is white on white and doesn't show up very well so I'll add to it with some of my own stitching. Realizing I can make more took the preciousness away from those two little blue birds and allowed my mind to free up to more possibilities.

Today I will make more birds and perhaps start embroidering those polka-dots I'm thinking about for one of the blue ones.