I don't like endings

These large tapestries take a long time.

The beginning is a bit like going on an adventure. Will I finish? Will this be the one that breaks me? How hard will this one be to finish? Lets get the yarn out. Find the cup of needles. Count, recount. Start. Restart.

Then the middle creeps in. Discipline. Sit. Find a podcast. Stitch. Follow the pattern. Celebrate the moving to a new page on the map. Celebrate the sections completed.

And then the end. I don’t like the end.

All of a sudden, its here. The end. The part where I stitch the hem. It takes 2 days. Then look at it. I usually find a section I walked away from. Stitch for a few more days. And then its no longer mine. I need to let it go as an object. It exists, but I don’t get to work with it daily. It’s no longer part of the conversatrion with my hands.

It looks like MADEtheUSA: Tobacco is almost done. Shes a biggee, like 28 feet or something. Those leaves took discipline to get through. More than other projects. The pattern is more complicated and nuanced than earlier pieces. As I work on the roots, the disconnected little stitches floating in air… I don’t know if I am ready. But I need to be. So hurry up and stitch, bitch.