It's Derby Time

Our Main Street DDA is doing a Derby Day party and has asked artists to decorate a hat which will be raffled off at the event.  I delivered mine today.  The hat had a plain black ribbon band so I went to my fabric stash to see what I had.  I found something black and white with a touch of red and blue that had horses on it.  

Okay, that's it; however, all I had were small scraps. So more digging, lots of black and white scraps, some heavy duty interfacing make a pretty nice bow.  The center, a rhinestone pin... did I mention I sometimes think maybe I'm a hoarder.  My house doesn't look like it but my studio sure does.  I have never been one to wear a rhinestone pin yet I have several, probably my mother's or my grandmother's or Ed's mother's... who knows.  I have them and one worked perfectly as the center of that black and white bow.  

That's why I save all that stuff, one never knows when one may need it.

Once the hat was delivered I did some more stitching and thinking about stitching.  Actually I was thinking about something I read that Dee Thomas said about contemporary embroidering and her stitching, "Perhaps it is decorative, a damning term in the art world, but I would rather people liked it for what they see and what they think about it, rather than as a concept that needs explaining."  

She also mentioned not thinking she wanted to stitch because when she was learning she never did it perfectly and hated it.  I could relate which got me to thinking about Mother.  And the more I thought about it the more I realize that given time, she would have been in the contemporary camp. 

Yes, her stitches where perfect, she was a certified Master Embroiderer.  However, her work wasn't traditional... Instead of flowers of a white pillow case, she did perfect stitches between the lines of the pillow ticking and stitched it into a purse.  I have no desire to do those perfect stitches, I am not nearly as patient as she was; however, I don't think she'd mind if she was still with us.