What a Mess!

Musings on a Tangled World

What a Mess!

I’ve been doing needlework literally since before I can remember.  I have no recollection of being taught cross stitch or crewel embroidery, the two forms I practiced (with an occasional foray into bargello, which I didn’t much care for) into my retirement five years ago.  Then a friend introduced me to blackwork, which has become my favorite by far and almost all I’ve practiced for the past several years.  My mother did needlepoint, so I’m sure she’s the one who put the first cross-stitch kit into my hands, just as she taught me to sew skirts and blouses and slacks.  But the needlework came first, probably because sticking a needle into a finger with a hand is safer than plunging one into a finger on the sewing machine. 

At any rate, I’m no novice at using a needle to create a bit of art. Still, while I’ve become a pretty neat stitcher, the backs of my work can sometimes be a real mess.  One lady in an online embroidery group I’m in says that her backs look like a drunken spider on LSD was trying to spin a web.  Mine aren’t quite that bad; the spider’s usually only drunk, not drugged.  But I don’t even try to do traditional blackwork, in which both sides are seen so that the back pattern must mirror the front and the beginning and ending threads are so carefully hidden that they aren’t noticeable.  In fact, most of the patterns I stitch can’t be done that way because of their more modern designs.  That’s fine with me – I put much of my work into frames or into tri-fold cards, where the back is never seen.

But then there are the bookmarks, of which I make many, for me, for family, for friends.  The problem is how to finish them: if left with nothing on the back, some stitches may loosen over time and give the bookmark a bedraggled look.  Also, the back is visible – and if it looks like a drunken spider spun it . . .

There are many ways to finish stitched bookmarks.  Some people use iron-on interfacing to apply felt to the back.  Some stitch a pretty material onto it.  Some sew a piece of wide ribbon onto it. Some use adhesive patches over interfacing.  Some stitch up two bookmarks and sew them together.  Me, I’m lazy.  I’ve found that trying to iron a felt backing onto interfacing is a most trying process, as half the time half the backing won’t adhere and the other half it comes loose later on.  The other ways require more sewing than I care for.  So what to do?

* * * * * * * * *

This world is a mess, like the back of a stitched bookmark, there’s no denying. Just looking at myself, I see the mess in my own faults and flaws, and looking outward I can’t help but see how mine are only one part of the world’s fabric.  From white lies to wartime atrocities, it’s an ugly place to live, yes?  Many days that’s all I see and I desperately want God to just end it, just end all the evil and degradation and be done with it and why doesn’t He? 

Well, we brought it all on ourselves, after all.  He gave us a beautiful and peaceful place to live, and we decided it wasn’t enough.  So we broke our friendship with Him into tiny fragments and chose to live our own way.  What we look around and see today is just the result of our own choices, and He wants us to understand that, to understand our need for Him.

But neither did He leave us alone in it, and He is working a plan of redemption.  From all the knotted and tangled threads we’ve given Him, He is working a design that will be gloriously beautiful someday.  And He gives us glimpses of that beauty every day if we look for them:  sunsets that paint the sky in brilliant corals and purples and pinks, zinnias that brighten a backyard with every color imaginable, fascinating patterns of clouds in a deep blue sky; and He lets us bring some glimpses of that beauty into the world, too: the love of friends, a magnificent cathedral, even pretty bookmarks.

So I decided how to finish my bookmarks.  I iron on a material similar to interfacing, called a stabilizer (intended to protect the skin from stitching on a blouse), and nothing more.  This allows the threads to show in all their tangled messiness, a reminder of the world’s messiness and how we so often see it.  But it only has to be turned over to be a reminder that our God is at work, taking our drunken tangles and weaving them into a beauty we can’t even imagine.  A reminder to me not to get caught up in chaotic appearances and instead look for patterns, His patterns, and for the hope they hold out.