Dream Made Manifest: the “Homecoming” Project

I woke up one night last year in a sweat, with a clear memory of seeing a ship on the waves, plowing through difficult seas as a man seeks to return to his home after years of war.  I confess it, I’m a little obsessed with the Odyssey and all its complexities of returning home, changed by the things you witnessed and the things you did, to a home and people that are also changed. How do you find your path back, when the people who anchored you, the dreams you had, the memories of your past no longer fit?

I’ve got a bunch of projects I should be doing, and I am working on those as the materials get all prepped and ready (fabric needs to get here, and then there will be a flurry, nay, frenzy, of activity). What sits in a little quiet space in the back of my mind, though, is that dream.  I finally decided to work on making this dream something solid.

So I gathered up all the spare change in the house–we aren’t really cash people, so all the change seems to get emptied out from our pockets into pottery jars and mugs I’ve made over the years, and seem to be perfectly suited for this purpose.  It turned out to be quite a bit of accumulated wealth over the last couple of years!  I took it to my local grocery where there’s a CoinStar thingy that exchanges your receipt for an Amazon gift certificate (without a fee!), and I bought myself this:

I have sketches and drawings to transfer.  I’m starting with embroidery, because I want something to take with me, and I want something that is going to allow me to really sink into this dream before I turn it into a quilt.  Working on the book is a very fast process, and I want this one to be slow, which it will have to be, because, book.  I’ll share what I do along the way, as I can.  Wish me luck: vision and reality are sometimes difficult companions.