my light green heart

I stitch my soft green damask with green threads and it gets heavier and softer.

I worked on it during the family week between Christmas and New Year's,
I kept going even though it seemed every evening that I should let it drop into the pile of abandons.

I added red thread.

I stitched it while surrounded by family.

It's green like a leaf.
It comforted me like a tree, hiding my nervousness
containing my creativity
It allowed me to be present for them because it was only my hands doing busy work
I was not engaging my mind.

Or limping body.

The tucks I am adding make it shorter.

In the mornings I continued, the boys and their dad downloaded the newest star wars game,
my daughters slept.

The greenness is why I started it.
That and the old-ness of the cloth.
The softness.

April called it a worry cloth.

I often stitch while visiting with my family.

Somethimes I go too far and the cloths need to have sections erased or removed

Moon cloth is an example of a worry cloth,
Also silver water and Canadian Pioneer.

On New Year's eve I couched a red line and drew a circle and decided to add more tucks.

This piece is about adding.

Adding and erasing.
These tucks hide some of the dots I made.
Tucking under, covering up.

my light green heart

I stitched all day yesterday.
I thought  yesterday was my last day with this piece.

We drove the girls to Sudbury and I stitched all the way there and all the way back
and then again before and after dinner,
and then some more in front of two episodes of homeland
and for two more hours after Ned went to bed.

It's late afternoon as I write this, snowing really hard and here I am, continuing to stitch tucks into the green heart.

Tucks;
the texutre of them, standing proud.
hiding things within  their creases
iniviting me to touch and manipulate.

I look at the boston fern that I've kept alive - thriving - for three years.
I stare at the repetitive small shapes that line up along the leaves

and the greenness of it makes me happy this January day.