Souvenir Handkerchief #3: Special Coronavirus/California Wildfire Collector’s Edition

 

Keep handy for smoke, tears, and general despair

Here you have it - the third and final hand-embroidered handkerchief from the Coronavirus series. Scroll back on this blog through time, or click the Coronavirus label in the menu to the right to track the inexorable decline into madness. After months of masks, social distancing, and societal mayhem, along came the California wildfires with orange skies and toxic smoke. I just stitched my way through the insanity and here you have the result.

In the detail photos below you will see the now-familiar virus; the smoke; the year 2020 floating around (the virus forms the “0”s in 2020); the words “”signs,” “portents,” “space” and “time”; fire and smoke, from billows down to those lethal 2.5 particles that stay in your lungs forever; and the title of this piece, “Solemn Lemons.” I have found myself playing a lot of text twist games on my iPad in the evening as I watch TV because I find myself unable to concentrate on even the stupidest old sitcom reruns. One evening the solution to the full word(s) in the text twist game were “solemn” and “lemons,” which is such a lovely anagram I thought, Oh, that is going on the handkerchief.

And for those stitching fanatics who simply can’t resist turning a piece over to inspect the needlework:

 

The back, with stitching revealed