Becoming Big Alice

When I am in the middle of a project and you don't hear from me for three days...

That usually means I am struggling.

And struggle I have been.

I knew that both the Mad Hatter and Alice were going to be tricky for me to figure out...and they were.


Anytime I have to draw faces and bodies and hands...let alone stitch them...I'm challenged.

Add to it the issue of making hair and you might as well give me a valium.

But I knew that I just couldn't do this block without those two characters so I set off to venture out of comfortable territory and into my own version of slaying the Jabberwocky.

I drew at least twenty profile faces of Alice, traced 5 onto muslin, stitched two....decided on one...

It looked great until I went to cut it out. I cut some of my outline threads...and then I ruined it further by using a marker to cover some of the white threads that were showing. The marker bled onto her face and made her look like she was the daughter of Quasimoto.

My crazy (CQ) girlfriends were over yesterday and they all encouraged me to keep her and try to fix her. By last evening, I was cursing and swearing and exhausted...and I feared I would have to start a new Alice this morning...which almost made me cry.

So, I woke early this Mother's Day morning and went on a bike ride with a group of great women. And while I was out passing the fields and the honeysuckle...I gained back my perspective. And I thought about Alice...


This is a story, afterall, about a young woman who finds her strength and her courage within herself to do what she needs to do when she needs to do it. She holds the key to her own destiny...and so do I.


There's a reason why we all love this story so much. It helps us to imagine and test out our own responses to challenges and adventure. So I can say to myself, if Alice can slay a Jabberwocky, I suppose I can figure out how to fix her facial disfiguration.

So, I woke up this morning and performed an enucleation (that's the operative term for an "eyeball removal" - I know, you get so much for your price of admission...)

Here she is after I painted over my marker bleed with white fabric paint...but before she had her surgical procedure.


And here she is post-enucleation (I'm trying to use the word three times so I'll remember it...)


And I am happier with Alice. I love how her dress turned out...especially the little embroidery around the bottom...


While I was out riding, my friend Maura suggested that I think about direction...rather than perfection. I liked that a lot.

And even though Alice isn't perfect. She's my Alice and I'm heading in the right direction. I'm stretching myself to a limit and vowing to try to keep growing, even if it's painful.

Is this still about embroidery?

I think it is. Or about anything else that we strive to do and do well.

It's all about the journey after all...and we each have to find our own way.

Let's hope I don't disappear again for three days...or, heaven forbid, need an enucleation! (tee hee hee, that's three)

I need the next step to go a little more easily now.

Maybe it's time for tea...

Happy Mother's Day!