Friday, July 24, 2009

A challenge and temptation...

I have been embroidering from the age of about eight and am completely self taught. Though I still have much, much, much to learn, before my break from embroidering after Joseph was born, I had reached at least a decent level of skill. I love learning about embroidery, I love reading about it and I love doing it. Still I have had no regrets about my break from it and learning a different skill that is easier to put down and pick up again in knitting.

An of the cuff conversation recently though now puts me with an unexpected challenge and possibility. And elderly lady who is a friend of mine and I were talking about the needs of our church and how our women's group would fundraise next year for it. We do a bakesale and an event and things, then doneed the proceeds to the particular needs of the church. Last year we gave to the newly started youth group for teenagers. This year, our priest would like our help in purchasing some new deacon stoles. She was quite amazed at how expensive these were. Somewhere in the conversation I mentioned that is a life's ambition for me to one day embroider an altar cloth. (though I have always thought that would be something I would start on probably when I was retired). She was amazed, especially to hear that I had been embroidering for about 20 years.
All of a sudden she said I might be the one to help her with something. Our church does not have a funeral pall for cremations. She had seen one at the funeral of her sister and would love to have one to be used one day for herself and her husband. Maybe I would be interested in working one.

And now I am hesitating. I am two and a half months pregnant, and it IS an ambitious project. On the other hand, how many times do we postpone things we say we will do 'one day' and then end up never doing it. Of course my family always comes first, but well.. you really can not ignore your family to embroider. It's impossible (at least to me) to ignore the demands of a child to sit still and focus on needlework. And my husband loves it when I sit next to him and embroider.

So.. what do you think? Should I seriously consider and persue this? Or should I leave it for another time in life?

1 comment:

Wendy said...

Hmmm...a challenge indeed! Well, Lord willing, it won't be needed anytime soon, so maybe you could just go at a slow pace and do it as a project for when you have the time (and later in pregnancy, the need) to sit down, put your feet up and relax for a bit. I would probably be inclined to do it, as I find it soothing to embroider, and also it sounds like it would be much appreciated by the recipient. Be sure to keep us updated on what you decide!

PS. I'm so excited for you about the new baby! I left you a comment on the post where you announced your pregnancy, but I was a bit late, so don't know if you saw it.