If you know me in real life or have been following along since I started this blog in 2021, you know that I started embroidering in 2006 following Hurricane Katrina. I evacuated in August 2005 and stayed with my parents until I could return home in December 2005. As you can imagine, life in a post-Katrina New Orleans was surreal and weird. I picked up embroidery as a hobby early in 2006 to give myself something to do at night when it was too quiet in the neighborhood and to keep my brain from dwelling on all the bad stuff. Embroidery helped me a lot back then and I returned to it in full force when the pandemic hit and lockdown was in place. It's soothing and fun and pretty. Now I can't imagine a day going by when I don't embroider something. Having a daily art practice is so important to me now. I love creating new things and trying new things.
This week is always a hard week since its the anniversary of Katrina. Nineteen years ago my life dramatically changed. It doesn't feel like it was that long ago. Since I moved away, I try my hardest to keep busy this week and not take on anything too stressful. Well, my air conditioner was like "no ma'am, can't help you there" earlier in the week, so I've been dealing with that on top of feeling a lot of feelings this week. Thankfully, it was only a part that needed replacing and not the whole system. Keely had to go stay with my parents for a few days because the house was too hot for him.
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| They're so ridiculous and cute. |
Anyway, the AC got fixed. Keely is home now (and has been attached to me for the last day) and it's a long weekend. I can relax a bit this weekend and stop stressing about home repairs and anniversaries of life-changing events. Probably. Maybe. Probably.
I focused on one stitch this week, the ribbed spider web stitch. I learned it in 2021 and don't really have a lot of reasons to use in most of the pieces I create. It's a fun stitch and you know I love spiders and spider webs. Since I don't use a hoop for these pieces, the fabric tension was off. I think that contributed to some of my wonky stitches, but I'm not mad about it.
Here's this week's piece:
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| You don't have to draw circles to make the ribbed spider web stitch. You can use the dots for where the spokes will go or use the circle and dots as a guide. You can also go guide-less and let the stitches take you wherever you need to go. |
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| August 25 |
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| August 26 - used a button to "center" the spokes. The button adds height so the spokes are a little uneven at times and it makes it look a little messy. |
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| August 27 - this is a variation on the stitch called a chain stitch spider daisy. Mary Corbett has a great post about how to do this stitch. I think she came up with it and it's awesome. |
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| August 28 - I tried the button again, this time coming up from beneath the fabric and that helped a little with the height issue. Still a little messy. |
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| August 29 - this is the only one I did with an odd number of spokes. I think I need to use a larger circle for odd numbers. |
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| August 30 - the variegated thread is so pretty! This is my favorite web from the week. |
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| August 31 - I like this one a lot too. The spaces are consistent so it looks the most like an actual spider web. |
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| Week 35 |
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| Weeks 1-35 |
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| Week 36's color is stoneware. I haven't decided what I'm doing for this next week yet. It may involve the blanket stitch and fabric. |
WIP: Mushroom Farm Energy Series
After many, many weeks (probably too many), I've finished the embroidery and painting portion of the Mushroom Farm Energy series!
Look at the tiny bees! This series is for a friend who happens to be a beekeeper and is starting a mushroom farm, so I thought adding the bees to this one would be a fun little touch. The fabric medium for the paint works about 50% of the time, so all the pieces in this series have a paint bleed effect. My friend said it was fine since it was like a mushroom moving in the breeze.
Next up for this series is the framing. I'm placing these pieces into wooden shadow boxes rather than traditional embroidery hoops. I'm not entirely sure this is going to work. My goal is to finish the framing this weekend and send the finished series to my friend next week. Wish me luck.
Up next: a Loch Ness monster piece for a friend, working on a few kits I have for fun, and I get started on doing my entire Screams series again. I also need to start thinking about next year's 365 project...and maybe thinking about creating some one of a kind pieces to sell. I don't know if that's going to be a thing, but I'm thinking about it.
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