The past returns as I stitch. I guide the fabric through the sewing machine and wonder at its vintage. The piece of linen is silky, with a soft drape. It has been cut from a set of linen napkins I bought at the Salvation Army. Frankly, it was the embroidered mushrooms that had caught my eye. They are not kitschy or psychedelic; in fact, they're almost naturalistic in form. Now each mushroom is a framed rectangle I have appliqued to a small art quilt.
As I smooth the deliberately frayed edges of the linen on the quilt, I think about the moment in time that someone--perhaps a bored but artistically inclined housewife--decided to stitch her own linen napkins and embellish them with these mushrooms. (Why is another questions altogether.) The smooth, unstained linen speaks of frequent use and careful laundering, so I imagine back to a time before "stay-at-home mom" became a post-feminist choice, when housewifery was a fading but still expected norm. When the union of utility and DIY design was valued. I'd guess the '70s.
I cut out another piece of the linen, this time for the soft silhouette of a mermaid's torso. The edges ravel softly and I vacillate between leaving it untouched to move freely as a mermaid would through the sea and tacking it in place with a simple whip stitch. I decide to stitch the edges in place, molding the mermaid to the felted wool background. I use the smallest needle in the package of sharps and thread one strand of embroidery floss through its eye. My newly purchased reading glasses allow me to hold the needle close and begin the tiny stitching.
As the needle glides through the wool and catches a single linen thread, I feel its fragility, as if its wispy weft threads are ready to dissolve like cotton candy. This was a good choice then, to protect the mermaid's soft outline. Each stitch feels like a spell I am weaving for her protection, and perhaps for mine as well.
And as I go back and add a satin edging around the mermaid's arms, the past returns for me in a different way. "La Sirena" on the Mexican bingo card, the image I look for as I am searching for a lucky card. The "kitty" is a bowl full of pennies in the middle of my grandmother's formica table, and all the chairs in the house are crowded around it. The voices of my cousins, aunts, and uncles fill the living room-turned family bingo hall. My father, the family clown they call The King, turns over the top card from the deck, holds it up, and calls out the name: "El Borracho" lurches by with his bottle in hand; "El Catrin" fascinates in his formal cutaway suit. "El Sol" and "La Luna" fill my card with pennies, a row with only "La Sirena" to fill. And, because she is my talisman, she does indeed swim to the top of the deck of cards. My heart races. I squeak out, "Bingo!" before anyone else can claim the full kitty, and the pennies form a rusty pile beside my card.
My mermaid's hair is the color of those pennies, a braid of copper sewn with vintage crewel wool. Three happy starfish whirl beside her, soon to be embellished with embroidered spirals. I am happy with her, how she has formed--her quilted tail, her blanket-stitched net of a top, her sweetly curved arms.
But back to that question I evaded asking of my resourceful '70s housewife--the why? Why am I sewing this little talisman? She is not a useful item like the linen napkin I have ruined to make her. And surely my time--as a "work-at-home mom"--could be taken up by completing any number of tasks: I have images to edit for a work project, dinner to make, a hamper full of soiled cloth napkins of my own to cycle, homework to check, clutter to clear, a child to tend.
Yet I focus on the sewing so that the past can return with each meditative stitch. Not only the textile past that I am rescuing--the beautiful piece of linen and hand embroidery labored over long ago--but those little threads of memories that come back to me to be stitched in place.
The rain hasn't let up for days, and I'm feeling the June Gloom. Earlier in the week, however, my son and I caught a glimpse of the sun and mostly blue skies and headed to our favorite creek for a picnic lunch.
And today's all-day drizzle made it just right for sitting inside and putting the finishing touches on the WaterStone. The mermaid is curled around a felted stone, and her body is fashioned from a vintage linen napkin and thrifted vintage fabric scraps. Her braided hair is vintage crewel wool, and her collecting bag is crocheted from vintage variegated crochet cotton.
