Ahhh.... weekends

I'm slowly and steadily on the mend. One of my daughters once commented that she loved waking up to the sound of the sewing machine as it meant that Mom was well and happy and things were right with the world. Alas, these days not even the sewing machine does that, as she's in her final school year and they are PILED HIGH with pressure. Apart from the academic work she has far too many other school duties to manage and is constantly exhausted. Just 6 more months to go!

I'm very ambivalent about having chosen to sew on all these roads by machine - it will hold better but trying to manoevre it under the sewing machine with all those pins is a prickly business. Yeah, I could baste.... but, really, life's too short for basting! Or at least my sewing time is too short! I also get some very cute and cuddly companions joining me, who make manoevreing the quilt even more difficult... :)

Melancholia 2

I had the next bit of inspiration for this piece, so spent the last weekend laboriously cutting out 'roads' to go around all the blue blocks, and pinning it all down. (The bottom half is a leftover piece of release paper from fusible, that I used for the pattern. I didn't fuse it (although I like to fuse stuff, I also sometimes find that it makes the fabric quite stiff and all of this stuff is raw-edge and torn, so fusible wouldn't have worked with it.)
Detail shot. I'm now busy sewing it all down, which will also constitute the quilting. Will embellish afterwards, as I want to quilt by machine.

So, as you can see, I'm working again, which feels like a good sign. I really don't want to jinx it, but I 'think' (whispering: ...the medications are working. I think maybe I'm getting better! Shhhhh.)

I bought art!

I don't usually feel I can justify buying Art, as I need the money for more mundane things. But I fell in love with this at the recent National Arts Fest. I went and looked about 5 times, and eventually I was worried that someone else would buy it! It cost R600 for both canvases. I look at it everyday and feel buoyed up - don't regret it for an instant! Isn't it beautiful? It's done by an artist in Port Alfred, Barbara Langley and I bought it directly from her.

Melancholia

Here's what I'm working on (amongst others). All the torn squares have now been sewed onto the background. I'm a little bit stuck over what to do next, so it's hanging here until I get some more inspiration. Although the concept of "things all arranged nicely moving towards disarray" is a little cliched, since everyone else got to do it, I want a turn too.

suddenly, a year older

I'm 47 today. I don't want to think about where I have been or where I am going. I'm trying just to be mindful of each moment as it is here, one moment at a time...

I switched from Cymbalta (no success) to Efexor 4 days ago. Maybe...

Latest

... and here is what I am currently laying out, without any real idea of the end product in mind. I just feel empty, flat and numb - just trying to put one foot in front of the other and plod on - so who knows what will emerge here...?

Therapy art

A painting I did, as part of my psychotherapy.
The psychologist that I'm seeing also does some art (how great is that!) so in between each session (I see him only about every third week, due to cost and distance) he gives me an art task to do for the next session.

My Place

This piece was started as my entry for the Tri-Nations challenge (South Africa, Australia and New Zealand), but it quickly became apparent that 1 ) I wasn't going to finish in time for the deadline and 2) I thought the subject matter rather too dark for the occasion.

I apologise for the poor quality of these photos. I wrote the verse that is embroidered onto it. The theme for the challenge was My Place.
"My place is cast in shadow, my destiny alone,
With darkened eyes and heavy feet, my likeness is as stone.
My cloak is cut from sorrow, the stitches worn and trite,
such is my place, since I am one, acquainted with the night."

The last 4 words "Acquainted with the night" are taken from the Robert Frost poem with this title.
The quilting is a spiral, representing spiralling down into despair, and the other three embroidered images are of death.

Pretty dark. I didn't think it would go down all that well amongst, most likely, exquisitely colourful other entries, so I withdrew from the challenge.

Endless Night

You can't read the words - but they are an extract from the poem Auguries of Innocence by William Blake:
"Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night."

The colours are not true, the flash has illuminated them much more than they are.

My burden

I did this in papier mache several years ago (in another depressive episode) but hauled it out and dusted it off the other day.