That photo shows the last piece that I still had to embroider (inside the hoop).
I'll take more pics once the jacket is sewn, which may not be until fall.
But I finished the embroidery! I put a whole snake on a jacket!
This project represents the layers I have been shedding in my (really intense!!) midlife experience.
I didn’t realise that when I started. I actually got the pattern and fabric years before I felt ready to start on it, and then I spent a lot of time just thinking about to embroider on it, then at one point I KNEW it had to be a snake, but I didn't know what that would look like so I kept thinking about it.
Then one day, in therapy, my therapist said something like “You are shedding a lot of layers at once here, but you’re not just tossing them aside, you’re really present with the process of shedding and letting it have the time it needs.”
And the jacket project flashed in my mind.
And I said WHOA! I am working on embroidering a snake on a motorcycle jacket! I felt so compelled to do this, this must be why.
Which dovetailed with the explorations I was thinking about… Who am I as an artist in midlife after an unexpected divorce gave me space to come back to my art in a bigger way?
Because if you have been reading for a looooong time you might remember that I spent a lot of time in my late 40s dreaming on who I wanted to be in my 50s. And that felt important, that felt like the thing to explore at the time.. AND... who I am and what I want here at 52 is nothing like what I thought it would be even 3 years ago at 49.
So this jacket represents a LOT of pieces coming together.
This is a LONG project. After a lot of planning, dreaming and experimenting, I started the actual embroidery this last winter.
And as I have been working on it it also felt like… once this is done, that is signifying the start of a new era. But I thought that I had more time before this new era got here. I thought it would be next winter.
I have been getting ready for a new version of myself in a lot of ways, and the completion of this jacket is like - ok! Here she is! I am her!
Not that I won’t keep becoming new versions of myself of course. But this midlife new self has been the biggest “new me” I’ve ever experienced.
So I haven’t been working on this as fast as possible. I have finished multiple other embroidery projects while this one has been “on the hoop”.
I really followed my feelings about how fast to finish it, so the timing feels RIGHT.
This completed embroidery is a threshold and then the completed jacket will be another one.
AND the next morning after finishing it, an idea that has been incubating for years… LANDED.
There is a new way I want to share about working with dreams + obstacles. Something I have done on my own that I haven’t known how to share, and suddenly I feel ready to share it.
Like I needed to be this next level self first?
I’m not going to start doing it instantly, there is still a LOT to figure out it’s just that I feel ready to start figuring it out.
So I am adding it to the mix of projects I am working on for the Creative Dream Incubator.
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!!!
I finished the snake embroidery one evening... that afternoon I put the snaps on another big “sewing/embroidering for my dream self” project - I was making a painting smock. That project had been done for a while, I was just waiting to get the snaps I wanted for it.
I've never had a painting smock, I just have paint stains on most of my clothes.
And this feels more like a painting/creating/dreaming smock with embroidery on it. Like something to put on to REMEMBER MY MAGIC.
It’s a full long dress length shirt made out of white high threadcount sheeting, it kind of looks like a lab coat which is so great with the DREAM LAB meditation!
On the back I embroidered in big letters: KEEP YOUR HEART FIRE BURNING which is a teaching I received in January. I will share photos and more about it at some point.
For now I am just so thrilled that I finished these two HERE I AM AS MY NEW DREAM SELF projects on the same day.
And I am excited to see this smock get stained with paint splotches, and to keep embroidering more things on it. I think REMEMBER WHO THE FUCK YOU ARE would be good to have on there somewhere.
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