The Tapestry of Dreams-I

The onset of this year also marked the beginning of our lifelong journey as parents. No joy in the world could compare with the joy of holding one's baby in one's arms for the first time. Every parent in the world aspires to give the very best to his kid, often more than what he/she got as a child. Its a pure joy to watch her grow before our own eyes and perhaps even before we would realize, she will grow wings and will be ready and set to embark on a journey of her own. Much as we would always strive to provide her everything we can and perhaps even more, right from the day her angelic smile illuminated our lives, I wished we could give her something to remind her of how much more her parents love her with each passing day and what an absolute delight she has been to us. While it is our duty as a parent to bring her up in the best manner possible, something I strongly wish she comes to possess is the power of imagination and the perseverance to translate her dreams into reality.

After much thought, bickering and planning, we zeroed in on a grand hand-embroidered tapestry project and decided to label it as 'The Tapestry of Dreams'. For days on end, me and hubby kept sketching and visualizing objects to incorporate into our tapestry and scanned every source of inspiration (books, internet, signboards  etc) for hours on end. In a random Ikea catalog, I saw an interesting doodled fabric and hours of image search led me to Tidny by the amazingly gifted designer duo of Sissi Edholm and Lisa Ullenius. I have incorporated several of their doodles into the tapestry and hope to embroider it as beautifully as we can.After hours of deliberation (and endless baby related jobs), we started upon our project bit by bit. The progress has been slower than we expected but, without hubby's contribution it could have very well been a zilch!

In this first post in a series on 'The Tapestry of Dreams', I restrict myself to the top most panel which depicts the sky/space/ weather and elements there of.The coexistence of sun, moon and stars, as also the aeroplane and the UFO speaks of our attempt to combine the real and the imaginary. Isn't that what dreams are made of? Am also linking it up with Artistic Inspirations challenge. 

Our collective fascination for the colours of the rainbow is manifest in the double chain stitched rainbow rising over the horizon and an aeroplane flying across the sky leaving contrails. Reminds me of my recent flight when I witnessed the same while landing in Lucknow.

While they say, every cloud has a silver lining, nobody must have seen the same but ours definitely has one to boast of. Needless to mention, this silver lining proved to be the most difficult one to accomplish! The clouds outline has been done in running stitch with rain in single chain stitch. The filling of the cloud has been done in multi-colored button holes.

As is often the case in my life too, while it pours in Lucknow, Delhi boasts of a sun in its full summer splendor! Our vibrant sun however,shines beautifully over the city in our tapestry and is nothing like the scorching sun of Delhi one grew up under. The sun rays have been done in superficial herring-bone stitch and the disc has been done in button hole stitch.

The thunder of Lucknow lightning strikes can be seen in the purple blazes in the left corner but need not be feared in the presence of a benevolent planet and twinkling stars.

Lastly, the UFO in the right hand corner does not drop unfriendly aliens but stands for everything mysterious that our current level of scientific progress can not explain. Like its eager antennae extending outwards, for the rest of our lives, we too will be eager and anxious to receive any form of communication from the Small One. 

Hopefully when she will look at it sometimes in a ponderous mood, she will remember and understand a lot of things said and unsaid. As they say, 

 "It is the unspoken ethic of all magicians to not reveal the secrets." (David Copperfield )