This Is The Piece That Started It All...

...Well, not really. Not really really, but it was the first time I'd seen an embroidery that was freely designed and madly and wildly worked. It's been added to or fixed or something which makes me wonder why. Oddly. Oddly fixed, that is. Look at the back and you can see where it's had extra fabric put in and embroidered. Who can say why? Is it very old? Very special to someone?

The fixed up bit adds to it and makes it a little bit bizarre. The colours used in the repairs don't match very well although to be fair the greens of the lawn may have aged differently.

The thing about this embroidery is that you could say it wasn't very well made. Or it's heavy-handed and rough, but there's a wind in the trees, the grass is finely mowed. Your eyes is taken through the gate because of the block of green in finer stitching than the rest, smoothly and closely worked rows of Stem stitch.

One flat corner of the design, reflected (stylistically) by a flat sky.

$25 in 1979 and I bought it with some 21st birthday money. It inspired a picture I did, my first real embroidery. Can't imagine why I havn't posted that one here before either?? Tomorrow.

But what I want to say and I'm distracted by a show on tele that I want to watch... BUT we ought to remember the beauty of this piece when we are hyper-critical of our own stitching and accept the truth that roughness and clumsiness have their own charm.