in our own language 1 – Page 17 – Jeanne Hewell-Chambers

you get an idea.
you’re excited,
and before you can talk yourself out of it,
you make a shopping list
and gather materials
you’ll need.
everything is nice and orderly.
you are ready to start.

somewhere in the middle
things go wonky.
you get confused.
nothing looks the way you’d imagined.
you are lost.

you persevere,
trusting, hoping, thinking,
and maybe even praying a little bit
in your own way of praying.
maybe the entire process
is praying, now that you think about it.

eventually
order is restored.
you are excited again,
eager to move forward.
you may not know how the finished
project will look,
but you know what you need to do next,
and that’s enough
for now.

~~~~~~~~~

And so I begin this a special project that begs my attention. Though it will be documented here on Gone With The Thread, a blog created specially for irrepressible pursuits of my heart, you can read a little bit more about the inception of the idea here.

Nancy1

Nancy2

Nancy3

We visited Nancy last week, my friend Angela and I. After she finished her brownie sundae with strawberry milkshake, I put paper in front of her and a pen in her hand, and our Nancy drew like a woman possessed. She doesn’t have the fine motor skills to turn a single page at a time, and I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. She drew then stopped, waiting on me to find her a fresh page. She filled the remaining pages in my pocketbook notebook then Angela’s notebook then a few bits of paper I happened to have tucked to the side. That night I bought her a 6-pack of composition books and a side of pens, and the next day when we took her to lunch, I opened them in front of her. Though she didn’t draw with quite the same intensity as the day before, she was nevertheless focused, and filled the better part of three of those six books.

Yesterday and the day before, I scanned those images, and purchased several yards of white fabric – some broadcloth and some white textured fabric purchased at a thrift shop. (Stay tuned for details on my choice of fabrics.) Today I cut the fabric into pieces, and tomorrow I’ll print each image onto a sheet of tear-away paper, then I’ll set about stitching each of Nancy’s 163 drawings – one image to one piece of cloth – using purple thread because purple is her favorite color and Angela’s purple pen is the one she obviously preferred. I imagine doing one sketch/stitch a day, but you know how that goes . . .