Forget-me-not

Slight digression today as I have to make my needlework catch up with my brain.
I should mention I’ve cracked it: the honeysuckle in the bodice.
The puzzle, quite honestly, took over my brain and early yesterday morning I did three experiments, and Thankfully, and the last one proved my hunch.

So....
Earlier this Summer (of house arrest), I made a forget-me-not out of Long & Short stitch / Satin Stitch and ended up cutting it out to make a tiny textile brooch.  I then burnt the tiny frayed edge with a flame at the end, which singed the colour somewhat, but it wasn’t really noticed by the recipient and she is wearing it proudly in Fulham...

Can I say, I’ve always had a bit of a problem making things for myself, as opposed to others. That’s different now,  as a result of some brushes with mortality.  I basically had a wake up moment and realised: you know what, the hardest taskmaster of all is actually, me!

So that means, whenever I make something now, it’s for me.  Even if it’s not, it has to be ‘for me’ first, in terms of standard.  It actually took a brush with the grim reaper for me to feel ‘entitled’.  Can you believe that?

The way women are just....made, is that we always put others before ourselves, well guess what, the hands of Father Time turn for me too...I came to realise....finally.

Also, let’s not forget, sewing used to be a way to train girls into a patient state of mind, so that they would be more ‘marriageable’ and have compliant, patient and altruistic personalities.

I suppose that they would be calm and....be content to remain at home!

Indeed, the confinement of our feet and our waists and other regions, have ensured through centuries of fashion and culture (read: male domination) that we remain confined to the house.

In the film The Duchess, Georgiana tells her groom on the wedding night “clothes and needlework are all we have, as our worlds are confined, unlike men”, loosely paraphrased...

You know what I say to all of this societal control:
“Bind me in a nutshell and I’ll consider myself king of infinite space”....(Shakespeare).

Finished size = 2.00cms