old country house blog

31 Days, well minus 3, of CHANGE- Learning to NeedlePoint – a Metaphor for…something?

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a blog which had a post describing a Month long, “challenge” if you will, to involve as many bloggers as possible in a
 “31 Days to…”
 The object, as I gathered, was to do something, anything , something new, something you already do, something that you have been meaning to do, finish, procrastinating on.just do it…and see what happens. The theory being, and maybe this is just MY Theory, that no matter what, you will be in a new place, change will happen, in 31 days. Now I contemplated a number of things…healthy thngs like eating more greens, making better dinners, making dinner period…all the way to painting the exterior of my house. Things like maybe 31 days to finishing a thought. But as I am a chronic over-commiter-multi tasker too many logs on the fire person anyway, none of the things I came up with did anything but make me feel stressed.

So I let it go. I forgot about it.

And then this morning I was looking for my drill, again, and I got distracted when my daughter texted me from the School Bus, telling me that Muffin, our Wheaten terrier was chasing cars, again, and on my way to fetch the dog, I got distracted when I had to drive my 9th grader to school because he missed said bus, again…and I still have not found the drill and the dog is still out there chasing cars….

     But…I found a bin which contained my Mom’s unfinished needlepoint. 
My Mom needlepointed that floral pillow…



     My Mom was good at many many things, but she was brilliantly gifted at needlepoint. She won awards and ribbons and loads of praise for her stockings and pillows and framed canvases. She made me pillows, her friends pillows, she made all of her Grandchildren’s personalized Christmas Stockings, and then she made one for me. She never got to make one for my husband.

My Asparagus…

   When she passed away, I took all of her unfinished needlepoint and packed it away. I saved the canvases but later sold most of the bundles of thread on ebay, figuring that I would never get to the unfinished canvases… and if and when I ever did, I could buy new thread…that was dumb. Very Dumb. 

    But anyway, I saved the canvases and today I this one pulled one out.




 I knew IMMEDIATELY, after my morning,
 that THIS is what I NEED to do. 
For 31 days 
and beyond.       
       I need to learn to Needlepoint.

                                                                      and …This is why… 

Needlepoint is not something you can (or should)  do fast. 

It is not something you can do and run around and do anything else at the same time with. 
I think that the last time I did something , like that, was nursing my babies.
Peace.
Needlepoint  is calming and peaceful, at least my Mom made it look that way
It is meditative and good for the soul. I need that.
I need that, like, yesterday!

 and…


I will begin with this canvas.
 It looks about half way done.
 If the colors look familiar to you it is because all of these colors are in my Living room, in my whole house actually…what is that they say about the apple and the tree and falling?…
I think, actually, that my Mom was making this pillow…for me. 

    I am not sure how my 31 minus 3 day commitment will pan out, blog writing-wise, I have a multitude of other projects on the fire..
but maybe it will be the thread..
.(ha ha no pun intended)
 that ties it all together. 

   and so we begin…
guess I gotta go get some yarn. 
                                                         
 Tomorrow I will visit 
   “The Needle lady”


Peace is But a stitch away…

2 thoughts on “31 Days, well minus 3, of CHANGE- Learning to NeedlePoint – a Metaphor for…something?

  1. Oh my goodness… I love this! What a wonderful way to be connected to your mom, and make time for peace and quiet. I saw that 31 day thing, too, and thought “uh. no way.” So good for you for giving it a try 🙂

Comments are closed.