stuck again

Once again I have a piece that I've hand dyed that I can't bring myself to cut. It happened before, and I ended up framing the piece as is. I've never been happy with that solution, but I can't figure out what else to do with it.

This is the new piece:


One of the dye baths was shibori style--wrapped around a pole with string tying it off. The resulting cloth looks like ripples on water at sunset.

The fabric is an old tea towel. If you look closely, though, you'll see that there are small holes in the piece in the lower right hand corner. That's part of the problem, how to deal with that. I've tried applique shapes on it (realism kills the cloth for me), watercolor sketches (not working so far). I keep thinking I need to tear it into strips and put it on something. I had a piece of hand dyed silk that I think would go with it, but in a cleaning fit I misplaced it. Still looking.

But what make this piece special? I try to abide by the Doritos principle (use it, they'll make more), but then this comes along. It might be that it is so close to being perfect in my eyes on its own that I can't stand the possibility of ruining it--I paint watercolors, too, and many's the one that I ruined by not stopping soon enough. Or maybe even though it's 'pretty' as is, it's just not inspiring me. I've brought it out and hung it on my design wall two or three times in the last few months, and always end up putting it away for lack of motivation.

In the meantime, while it's been hanging there, I've done a couple of little sketch pieces (not done yet), thought about dyeing more napkins, cleaned the house, anything to avoid attacking this piece. Perhaps it is time to put it away again...