A couple of weeks ago I received an early Christmas gift....an advanced copy of the Winter 2012 Belle Armoire featuring romance inspired clothing, and my Miss Braun jacket. It's been such a delight to see my work in print over the past months. I become very attached to every piece that I create, as we spend hours, days, weeks, and in some cases months together, marrying bits of the past into something of beauty that will live on into the future. My work has become a sort of time line for me over the past few years, which have not been the easiest. I work wherever I happen to be. The first thing that is packed into my carry-on bag is a stitching satchel. I put more time into planning the pieces I am going to be working on when I'm traveling, making certain that I have all of the bits and pieces that I will need so I won't have a panic attack from being left with my hands empty and idle, than I do in the planning of what I will actually wear while I am away....although my family will argue that comment....I worry about and plan everything really....it's a curse. Many of my tea dyed pieces were created while I spent months flying back and forth between LA and Minnesota while my mother was fighting cancer. I had pots of antique lace sitting in tea baths in my sister's house while my family cared for her in her final weeks. I sat in a chair by her bed and crocheted her entire last day....I've never been able to finish that scarf. Those are things that I think about when I salvage beautiful hand made lace and doilies, and linens. These are little bits of other women's histories....beautiful things that they created while taking care of people they loved. There are a lot of tears mixed into those intricately knotted fibers, and many of them were there long before I was even born.....I feel compelled to preserve them.
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