Peacock in Splendour

This piece took its own sweet time to make - the colour-scheme confused me! At first I wanted it to have pinks and purples and that particular light blue (which was a discovery I made in the school's thread-cupboard!). But I had to finally give in to my instinct of the mismatch that the pink was to the beige of the background. While most thought that it was silly to even think of unstitching so much of the pink, I decided to do what it takes to be proud of a little piece of art. Working more feverishly than I had planned, it was completed in no time - and gifted to my proud Mom-in-law even faster! (Double-yay!)

And that was the other little story. When I went home this summer, I found my Mom-in-law at the brink of a massive embroidery project herself - a whole bed-cover! What I thought was inspiring, turned out to be intimidating to her; after all, she hadn't picked up the needle and thread in the last 35 years! We spent a few days figuring out the colour-scheme of her magnum opus (to-be!), ran around in a sweltering summer afternoon in Chennai looking for the threads and finalised on the stitches that she would use. She turned out to be a diligent student who had been (believe it or not!) putting in hours of graft and toil ever since, referring to this piece (above) as a ready reckoner for the stitches that she needs to use in her own piece!

Her child- enthusiasm is infectious to say the least! And her diligence to become a student again is humbling...