I've been embroidering for almost 20 years now. I actually learned to cross stitch when I was younger, but didn't really enjoy or appreciate it back when I was 10 or 11. I started embroidering when I returned to New Orleans after evacuating for Hurricane Katrina. I needed something to do that took my mind off of all the things. It was more of a hobby until 2020 when the pandemic gave me the opportunity to spend time embroidering. Since then, I embroider something every day. It's a practice for me and I really don't know what I'd do with myself if I didn't make time to embroider something.
I was thinking about this last night at a book event at Old Town Books for Shannon Downey's new book, Let's Move the Needle. Shannon is the reason I got to see my work in a museum back in 2021. She created the Badass HERstory project back in 2018 to gather work from embroidery and other needle craft artists and create a community of people sharing their stories through their art. Our work was shown in an exhibition alongside Shannon's work at the National Liberty Museum in 2021. I was able to go see the exhibition and it was one of the greatest moments in my life as an artist so far.
I finally got to meet Shannon last night at the book talk and it was really wonderful. During the talk portion of the evening, she talked about coming back to embroidery after learning cross stitch as a child and not liking it. She also talked about her own journey as an activist and craftivist. One thing she shared really resonated with me: focus on one thing in your activism. If you try to do it all, you'll burn out. It made me feel good to hear someone say that.
Anyway, I'll share more about the talk and the book once I have a chance to read it. My friend Anita went with me and took a picture of me meeting Shannon, which was awesome.
For this week's piece, I wanted to focus on one of my favorite things to embroider: trees. I love embroidering trees. I also wanted to use the hot glue technique again since it's super fun and always results in some interesting textures. I also have to think about how to maneuver around the glue since it doesn't always cooperate in being flat or smooth. I was originally going to add leaves, but it takes a lot of time to satin stitch a large tree, so I skipped the leaves. I love the end result.
The next few weeks will be Halloween themed, including a piece inspired by a Neko Case song and a piece featuring needle felted ghosts. Halloween week will feature bats because
it's freaking bats.
Here's this week's piece:
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| October 6 |
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| October 7 |
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| October 8 |
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| October 9 |
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| October 10 |
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| October 11 |
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| October 12 |
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| Week 41 |
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| Weeks 1-41 |
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| Week 42's color is loden. Apparently, loden is an organic shade of green that's become very popular in art and fashion in the last decade. Who knew? |
Small Joys from the Week
You know me, I love tiny objects. Earlier in the week, my newest Nuggets from
Wild Rainbow Co arrived and a little mushroom piece from
Sunroom Ceramics came too.
I also finished the cactus piece I started in Maine. This kit came from
Laine Irene Designs. I think I'm going to hang it on my Christmas tree.
Capital Stitch Co was also at the book event last night. I have two of Miri's kits already, but had to add the toadstool trio kit. Eventually I'll finish all the kits in my house while also creating original pieces. It'll happen. Probably. Maybe. Absolutely.
I'm trying to decide if I should start a new kit or start working on the complete Screams series next. I need at least two embroidery projects going at all times. I've been planning to stitch all 12 Screams as a combined piece and may start that. I also need to work on my embroidered Polaroids since a few are going to be Christmas presents. So many projects, so little time.
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