SAILING ON

My dear friend Mary,

who I hope one day soon will be my son's mother-in-law,

suffered bravely thru Chemo this past summer,

and is now out of the woods.

 We are hoping and have our fingers crossed.

During that time I was so touched by the beauty and depth of the sailing ships that Fiber Artist Hazel Monte of Handstories blog fame was creating,

that I felt they would be a perfect gift for Mary to enjoy and be inspired by towards her healing.

Mary is also a quilting artist,

so I knew she would appreciate the delicate beauty that Hazel stitches into each and every piece.

I knew that if she was able to gaze at them,

touch them,

that perhaps they could help her to forget for a moment the terrible nausea she was suffering thru.

This first one reminded me of Mary's journey she was on,

the rocky seas,

yet the hope that the stars were there

guiding her towards a better place.

She just had to hang in there and she would get thru. 

In this second one the ship is gliding along thru peaceful seas,

finally out of the storm.

Where Mary has arrived and is now.

When I received the ships from Hazel,

she had wrapped them in the lighter blue piece of Shibori fabric,

and it seemed to make a really nice frame around each ship.

Ripping it in half and using Jude Hill's invisible tacking stitch 

I was able to attach them to the back of each ship.

I knew I wanted to mount them onto embroidery hoops to hang

 so I searched thru all my garage sale finds and came up with these two matching dollies.

Again,

using Jude Hill's invisible baste I tacked the mounts onto the crocheted pieces...

which I then stretched around the hoops and sewed each point down.

I was so pleased with how they turned out,

and Mary was delighted with her gift.

Just as I had hoped,

 she examined them and touched them for a good 15 minutes,

helping her to forget.