St. Rose and her Pinking Shears

OK, let me explain.

I was having a hard time with the pink theme. Don't like pink. I started working on a design for a little pink house, but I did not like the design. I went to bed one night feeling anxious about my pink quilt, feeling feverish and sniffly and I didn't sleep well, but when I did sleep I had some pretty strange dreams. In one of my more vivid dreams a face from a quilt I made several years ago appeared. It was a quilt called "Patron Saint" and it was a saintly figure holding a pair of scissors. Since I love scissors, collect old scissors and think they are the best tool ever invented, I have adopted my little saint and she hangs on the wall and watches over me as I sew.

In my dream the scissor saint had come to life. She held up her scissors and said, "you know, I have pinking shears too." And, indeed, the shears in her hand were not regular scissors but pinking shears. PINKing shears—get it?? Doesn't the brain go to interesting places when we are asleep? It was, of course, my devious subconscious attempting to skirt the actual color pink and come up with a tricky device. But, once awake, my rational brain said, "No. This is a color challenge, not a word challenge." Still, having gone to all the trouble of informing my dream, I decided St. Rose (as I was now calling her) and her pinking shears deserved a place on the final piece and she would just have to be dressed in pink to make it all work. So here she is. She does look a bit pained by her pink attire, don't you think?

And just to further explain—I am not Catholic, but I have a small fascination with saints. I think it may have started when I had my tonsils out in a Catholic hospital at age 5. The nun who took care of me told me that my name was the name of her favorite saint, St. Teresa of the Roses, and that was quite a special name to possess. As an avid childhood reader I went through of phase of reading biographies of saints and sobbing through The Song of Bernadette. I love the Byzantine icon images of saints and have emulated that stylized, flat style for a lot of my work. I started calling my piece St. Rose simply because of the pink color connection. Then I Googled to discover the real St. Rose of Lima, the first saint in the new world, and was quite surprised to find that she is a patroness of embroiderers and lacemakers and supported her family as a teenager with her exquisite needlework.

Do you see a similarity between my St. Rose and this one? I did not find this image until after my piece was finished.