Doily Woman/Gray Battle Maid

I worked all day on my Doily Woman.  Removing the red squares from one part of the old quilt and replacing them on the background behind my Doily Woman.

I think the red outline makes her seem like she’s more integrated in the background, more a part of it. As if she’s emerging out of it instead of just sewn on top of it.  I hadn’t expected that, but the idea of emerging suits her.

I also looked up the meaning of the name Zelda, which is what I’m going to call her, or I should say, who she is.  I did begin to create her on the day Zelda died.  And I think, in her posture, Doily Woman has the kind of strength, independence, and determination that our sheep Zelda embodied.

As usual, when looking online, I found different interpretations of the meaning of the name.  But in the Online Etymology Dictionary, I found that Zelda is short for Griselda which in German means “gray battle-maid”.

Wikipedia suggests that “the name originated from Old English “gris hild”, meaning “dark battle”…. *grīsaz, meaning both “grey” and “fearsome, terrible”, and *haliþaz, meaning “warrior, hero”, or alternately *hildiz, meaning “battle” “

Zelda is a warrior.

I was stunned at the meaning of the name Zelda and at that moment my Doily Woman became even more of who she is.  I feel like gray, battle, maid is an almost perfect physical description of her.

I researched some more and found that “Gray Battle Maiden” is an  Anime character whose name is Zelda.

So I texted the artist, Blue, from Bishop Maginn School whose paintings Jon and I helped sell this past summer to ask if she was familiar with the character.  I haven’t heard back from her yet, but I know she’d be the person to ask about this contemporary Zelda.

I can see now that Zelda is coming to life and I seem to have less to do with it than she does.