There’s something about traveling that’s like falling in love. Everything is new and exciting, the people, the smells, the food, the architecture, the monuments, art, culture; immersing yourself in something so completely different from what you’re used to, from what you know, is akin to falling in love. It’s exhilarating and defies description. When I’m traveling I want to know the language, see how the people live, understand the customs, go to their markets, eat their food, see the artisans at work, lose myself in this foreign place. It’s a high like nothing I’ve ever experienced. That I can share that excitement with my husband makes it all the more magical.
With my Husband in Wahtye’s Tomb
That he shares my love for travel, makes it all the more amazing. Together, we fall in love over and over again with the country we are visiting. This trip to Egypt has been no exception. In the above photograph we are standing in front of Wahtye and his wife in the recently discovered Wahtye’s Tomb, which is also the subject of the National Geographic Documentary of the same name.
The young man on the left is who guided us just this morning into the tomb. It was such a treat to meet him and talk to him about how it felt to discover such a treasure! After the tour he and his director decided to show us something they had just uncovered an hour or two before we got there.
The top shape is a mummified lion cub discovered this morning by the same archeologists who discovered Wahtye’s Tomb! I could barely contain my excitement.
The joy and sheer exuberance of being able to see things that I’ve only read about and seen pictures of is beyond anything else I know of. It is to be transported to another time.
“Bent Pyramid” the 2nd attempt by Sneferu to build a pyramid with the calculations off and requiring a slight adjustment, hence the “bent” sides. 4th Dynasty, 2600 BC. His 3rd attempt was successful and became the template by which others were then built.
Along the way we passed this handsome fellow.
Look at his eyelashes!! Isn’t he beautiful?
Tomorrow we leave for Jordan, yet another opportunity to fall completely in love all over again, awaits us!
Special thanks to Nabil Ashour, Medhat Hafez and Abercrombie & Kent.
First things first. We are in Egypt! Yup, you read that right. More specifically, at this very moment, we’re floating on the Nile, taking in the sights as we make our way toward Luxor. Everything about Egypt is inspiring, the history, the beauty, the art, the textiles, the carpets, the people… amazing. I’ll give you a pictorial summary of our first few days, but I have to tell you a quick story, so you get the backdrop for this trip.
When Richard and I got married, we pissed off a lot of friends and family when we announced we were planning on getting married on Christmas day. Talk about young and foolish. But friends and family balked at that idea, so we scrapped it and settled for the winter equinox, which was December 22nd that year. We then planned our honeymoon. We decided we would spend xmas eve and xmas day in Jerusalem at the King David hotel, New Year’s Eve was going to be in Giza, overlooking the pyramids, then a cruise along the Nile, ending in a quick flight to Jordan to take in the sights of Petra. Did I mention our son was 9 months old when we got married? Never ones to go with convention, we did things our way and then often would remark to each other later that “our” way wasn’t necessarily the best way and there was a reason people get married, take a honeymoon and THEN have children. But I was in my later 30’s by the time we decided to have children, and planning a wedding took a back seat. So there you have it. Anyway, the intifada broke out about three months before our wedding and as we were traveling with a small child we were advised to scrap our plans. (We had reserved everything, right down to the guides.) So we did. We canceled everything and ended up going to Mexico where all three of us got really, really, really sick. So sick. You have no idea how sick. We referred to it as “the honeymoon from hell.” Except that I have great memories from that trip even so. But we always wanted to try and recreate our planned honeymoon. Years ago I was fortunate enough to be sent to Jerusalem to cover a conference, and Richard tagged along, so we were able to do that part, but we never did get to Egypt or Jordan, until now, more than two decades later.
Okay, now that you have the backstory, let’s get on with Egypt!
On the Nile in Edfu
Our Cabin (and the artistry of the staff) as we float along the Nile. Those are bottle caps for eyes, by the way.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I can’t write about Egypt and not show you a photograph of the pyramids. So here you go.
The pyramids of Giza
And the camel ride that cannot be refused.
“Valentino, not the designer.”
Camels, or I should say, this camel was very sweet and friendly. For some reason I had the idea that camels were ornery, like llamas, but I was mistaken.
And then there’s the sphinx.
The Sphinx
Outside the Egyptian Museum where 2/3 of the collection has already been moved to the new museum still being built. And yet, it was still overwhelming!
Look at this cloth!
Embroidered Cloth
And this one, which is perhaps my favorite.
Indigo Cloth
The internet is spotty out here on the Nile, so I’m just going to end with a few more photographs. More to come when I get the chance.
Abu Simbel
Ancient Graffiti
This last was one of my favorites. I fell in love with the “graffiti” that peppers the temples. This one is from around 300 BC. Think about that. It gave me all sorts of ideas for my next workshop, which I’ve already roped my friend, Pat Pauly into making linen fabric kits for. More on that in a few weeks!
Yesterday I released a new Youtube Video with the same title.
Go check it out!
There are a few other key factors to interpretive hand stitching, improvisational hand stitching, expressionist hand stitching or whatever else you might want to call it. I think all of these are good descriptors of my process when taking a piece of linen and starting to stitch on it.
The first few stitches
However at a certain point, composition plays a key role in how the piece evolves. It’s not enough to just stitch and hope for the best. Without a good composition it can look like a bunch of disparate parts, each might be lovely taken on their own, but they aren’t necessarily interacting well with one another.
More stitching added…
Another common issue is that one part can take over, drowning out everything else; this brings its own set of challenges. Or perhaps the whole thing is stagnant. There’s not a great deal of movement, so it’s important to know when these things are happening and why. Without knowing why, it is nearly impossible to remedy.
Once the large X was removed the two half moons in the upper right and again in the lower left began to dominate
The trick then is to resolve the “divas” and figure out how to turn the volume down or remove them. In this case, I had to remove it. Between the shape and color it was too much. Except that when it was removed, I was faced with a new challenge.
Piece without the darker shapes
So that’s where I am right now. I’m sitting with the challenge of having removed three domineering shapes. Taken on their own, they were fine, but when seen as a whole they were dominating. Except now the piece isn’t grounded. It’s lost some of its vigor. Partly that’s due to the removal of the color, which lended a great deal to the overall piece. So now I have to figure out how to pull it together, give it some excitement. And this is how it goes. There’s a kind of ebb and flow that inevitably happens when working on a piece like this. Take away some aspect and suddenly there’s a new set of challenges.
The key is to not give in to discouragement. To keep going no matter what. To keep trying new things. Thinking out of the box, pushing the boundaries of what I know how to do, trying something I’ve not tried before, test out other colors or reintroduce a color I’ve removed and see how that shifts the conversation.
This is the process that is interpretive hand stitching. Where one idea leads to another and another and another and on it goes.
Yesterday I released a new YouTube Video: My Top Ten Favorite Threads For Hand Stitching.
As a follow up to that video, I’m adding my favorite materials to use, as well. Click on any highlighted text for more information.
Fabrics:
Pat Pauly’s gorgeous hand dyed linens. My absolute favorite thing to stitch on is 100% linen and Pat Pauly’s gorgeous hand dyed linens are the best, most unique and above and beyond anything else that’s out there on the market. Pat is almost always sold out of her linens as the demand has been fierce, however, if you want to learn how to hand paint, stencil and screen print your own, take one of her workshops and you can learn to create your own. As a quick aside, I have a brand new workshop that I’m offering in 2022, which features fabric kits made up of Pat’s linens that she is specifically making exclusively for my workshop. These linens are only available to those who sign up for the workshop! Very exciting.
“Flow” using Pat Pauly’s hand dyed linens.
2. Mulberry Bark. I love layering my linen with Stef Francis’ Mulberry Bark. I stitch directly onto it. Some people have said they soak it in water, but I don’t. I prefer to pull it, bunch it up, stitch it down and let it be.
4. Stef Francis Silk Throwsters. I love this stuff. It’s a bit like wool roving, but it’s silk and has a beautiful hand and texture to it. I needle punch it and then stitch on top of it.
5. Stef Francis Sari Ribbon It comes in a huge hank! I couch it, ruch it, scrunch it, twist it, use it to wrap other things in it and then stitch on it. There is no end to the things one can do with it.
Wrapping with Silk Sari Ribbon
6. Old T-shirt. I love hand dyeing an old t-shirt and then cutting it up. I did a video on how to do this. See below.
7. Silk Velvet It’s fun to hand dye your own, but Stef Francis also carries some beautiful silk velvet in gorgeous colors. If you want to get really creative, you can emboss your silk velvet, as I did in the photograph below. I like using wooden stamps, like these.
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So here’s the thing… I feel a whole lot better when I show up even when I feel awful, even when I feel things are rough and I’m tired, even when I don’t want to. I’ve also learned that showing up anyway is the single best remedy for not continuing to feel that way. Except that it’s also really hard to do. That’s the thing. It’s really, really hard and sometimes… sometimes it feels impossible. I know it technically isn’t, but it sure feels that way.
Marcus Aurelius wrote about pain a great deal. And in his writings about it he consistently focusses on choice and responding, rather than reacting. I’m a huge fan of Marcus Aurelius, not just because he was wise, but because this guy was one of the most powerful men in the world and yet he continued to do his best to remain humble, to avoid arrogance, to nurture self awareness and to treat others with respect and kindness.
So yeah, showing up anyway. Easier said than done, so I have found ways to do so that aren’t quite so laden, that make it a tiny bit easier. I call it setting myself up to succeed.
Here’s what I do:
Thread up a whole bunch of needles with different types and weights of thread. I use both Chenille needles and Milliners Needles.
Grab a needle, any needle, it doesn’t matter which one, and begin stitching. I have a couple of mindless go-to stitches that don’t require any thought. They are the meditative stitches like french knots, bullion knots, colonial knots, seed stitch, chain stitch, fly stitch, straight stitch and then I riff on them, which means I start exploring every aspect of that stitch. How many wraps can I make on a french knot before the whole thing begins to fall apart? (It turns out a lot more than you might think!). What ways can I stitch a straight stitch to create different patterns?
Exploration
Investigation
And before you know it, I’m playing!
Stitching, more than anything, changes everything, even grief, even pain.
If you’re curious to know how I did this, I made a video about it and you can watch it here:
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