I know, I know. You’re wondering if you stumbled upon the wrong blog. You’re thinking – what has she done? Where are all her beautiful threads that I so covet? What’s going on around here?
Never fear. My threads, and everything else hand stitching related, are all, somewhat, neatly stacked on the floor out of view and then not so neatly shoved into various corners, like just to the left of my sewing machine.
It kind of reminds me of Santorini where there’s one view that one can capture by photograph that is exquisite and magical and just beyond beautiful, like a fairy tale, really.
But then, if you turn just a little, you get a very different view where things aren’t quite so glistening and white, there’s garbage, the houses aren’t all pristine, and the land isn’t landscaped, but rugged and without flowers.
That’s what my studio looks like right now. There’s only one shot where everything is neat and tidy. Everything else is pretty haphazard.
The reason for all of this is that I’m taking a 2-day workshop with my friend, Pat Pauly, who is fabulous and a really wonderful teacher! I’m not much of a quilter, so this is definitely a stretch for me, but I love her work and she’s pretty terrific, so here I am, preparing for her workshop, which will begin in just a couple of hours.
Pat Pauly is also the one who sent me this piece of linen, which I’m working away on…
I’ve always worked with my hands. As a child it was embroidery with a hoop and sewing my own clothing. At around nine years old my mother taught me to knit, then there was a brief macrame obsession in the 70’s where I decorated my bedroom with intricately knotted macramé pot hangers into which I hung plants of various kinds. Later, when living in LA I worked for a tailor and watched how he would transform yards of material into the most elegant suit and was taught how to assist. Hollywood’s finest came to him.
Later is was fashion design, draping was particularly appealing because you could manipulate the fabric to hang in interesting ways on the human body, and then I began designing knitwear. Jewelry design and learning to solder and manipulate metals of various kinds, then hand stitching and now textile art, improvisational stitching, and all along the way there were forays into other things such as origami, painting, collage, throwing clay onto a wheel; always there’s been something to occupy my hands.
And then this morning I saw the following on my facebook feed:
“Grandma how do you deal with pain?”
“With your hands, dear. When you do it with your mind, the pain hardens even more.”
“With your hands, grandma?”
“Yes, yes. Our hands are the antennas of our Soul. When you move them by sewing, cooking, painting, touching the earth or sinking them into the earth, they send signals to the deepest part of you and you calm down. This way she doesn’t have to send pain anymore to show it.”
Are hands really that important?”
“Yes my grandchild. Think of babies: they get to know the world thanks to their touch. When you look at the hands of older people, they tell more about their lives than any other part of the body. Everything that is made by hand, so it is said, is made with the heart because it really is like this: hands and heart are connected. Think of lovers: When their hands touch, they love each other in the most sublime way.”
“My hands grandma… how long since I used them like that!”
“Move them my love, start creating with them and everything in you will move. The pain will not go away. But it will be the best masterpiece. And it won’t hurt as much anymore, because you managed to embroider your essence.”
By: Elena Bernabe of the wall of San Arte
Our hands. A friend of mine told me that she met a man who could tell the age of anyone who came to him. She said he didn’t look at her face or her eyes or her body, he looked at her hands, held them in his and then announced her age accurately.
This past week has been filled with medical emergencies of one kind or another. Not mine, but those I love. So far everyone is either stabilized or we hope they will be soon, for which I am grateful. So what better way to respond to the fear that comes with people we love going through medical horrors?
Silliness and laughter.
This one from my mother (I always love getting the things my mother sends) is more sweet than silly. I’m so impressed with this little girl who clearly has Celtic blood running through her veins! Have I mentioned that my husband descends from Vikings? Not the war waging, marauding, raping and pillaging ones, but the farmer, seafaring adventurer, music and dance lover ones. Can you pick? I just did. And anyway what do the celts have to do with the vikings, you might ask? Well, probably other than culturally influencing each other, intermarriage and the like, not much, but this is the way my brain works. Welcome.
And then there are these photographs that my sister-in-law sent, which are just too funny and fabulous.
In another life I want to be a travel photographer so that I can have animals climbing all over me. It’s important to clarify – non human animals, like a cheetah sidling up to me or a tiger cub or a baby gorilla… Okay, whatever.
My husband and I read and contemplate a philosophical reading of some kind every morning. Every now and then there is one that is so helpful it stays with me, like this one from The Daily Stoic:
“A long To-Do list seems intimidating and burdensome – all these things we have to do in the course of a day or a week. But a Get to Do list sounds like a privilege – all the things we’re excited about the opportunity to experience.”
Yesterday I was again reminded of this powerful reading as I sat waiting for my husband to be released from what we both had thought would be a minor surgical procedure. Until it wasn’t. Until things went wrong. Until this minor medical procedure turned into an all day long nightmare for him. A day in which I kept saying to myself, because of modern medicine he gets to have this procedure done, no matter how awful it is. Because of the times we live in, we get to call a car in 95 degree heat and have someone drive us to where we need to go. When stuck in traffic we get to consult WAZE and take the most expeditious route. And while waiting in the waiting room I get to have uninterrupted hours of stitching to calm my nerves.
He is home now and recuperating, for which I am extremely grateful. A big thanks to all of you who reached out to me and wrote such nice comments in my Stitching Circle.
And now I get to go do some work with my daughter and then I get to do a whole lot more stitching on my current project!
Someone commented on my Youtube channel about messiness, saying that she was happy my work area isn’t pristine as that would be intimidating. And it made me think about the various stages of messiness.
The gradient scale of messiness, because this is important.
1. Kind of “messy”, but it’s not a problem and anyway to my mind, this is actually incredibly neat. Everything has its place, I know where things are, it’s easy to work on my current project and all is well with the world.
2. Okay, okay, things are getting “messy” but really it’s all subjective and yes, I’m having trouble finding things, but nothing I can’t handle. Besides, I’m working here and a certain degree of messiness is to be expected and even necessary.
3. Messy is to some, what neat is to others, I tell myself, and I’m working and anyway I just grab whatever is easiest and closest and call it a “prompt”. However if I’m being honest it’s starting to be a problem and I can’t find things I want to use, though I will never admit this out loud.
4. The tipping point: things have gotten out of control. I know it, in my heart, but I still continue to work, despite the mess, because the work takes priority and anyway I know what happens once I start “cleaning” things up. Still this has gotten beyond “messy” and I’m spending more time looking for things than actually stitching.
5. Clearly something has to change. I can’t even find the piece I’m working on and so resolve to clean everything up… tomorrow.
6. A thorough cleaning is done. I carefully put things in places that seem reasonable and make sense to me at that moment. It’s all so neat and tidy, I hardly know where to start!
7. My work area is clear of everything but the piece I’m working on, only now I can’t find anything and spend hours looking for things that I knew were “just over there”.
8. Begin ripping the place apart in search of various much needed items.
Repeat steps 1-8.
You’ll be relieved to know I’m currently hovering at around a 3. Totally doable!
Dedicated to all of you who are in areas of the world where the heat is the only topic anyone’s talking about.
From the south there’s this one:
“It’s hotter’n a blister bug in a pepper patch.”
And this one:
It’s so dang hot, I just saw a hound dog chasing a rabbit and they were both walking.
This youtube video, which if you have delicate sensibilities is probably not for you, is silly and some of the jokes fall flat, but one can blame it on the heat.
I had to add this one, because… well who doesn’t hum this when everyone starts talking about how insanely hot it is?
In other news I continue to stitch away despite the heat and warnings from ConEdison that New York City is in danger of losing power, yet they still keep lighting up all the massive signs in Times Square, but ask that residents conserve and turn their air conditioners down, which we’ve dutifully done.
I’m wishing all of you a pleasant and not too hot day!
My mother hasn’t sent me anything in a few days other than requests for rain, which I’ve done my best to accommodate, but I only have so much reach when it comes to the weather. Speaking of which, it’s in the upper nineties here in New York City for the next couple of days and then will plummet into the mid to high seventies before rising back up. At least this is what we’re being told by meteorologists, who have the cushiest job ever, in my opinion. What other career allows you to be completely wrong more than 50% of the time and still hold onto your job? So much so that there are even a whole bunch of memes out there, like this one.
So, yeah.
But all of this hot weather means that staying inside continues to be a good idea, which means, hand stitching! Here’s what I’ve been working on.
There’s nothing quite like being woken in the middle of the night only to then not be able to go back to sleep. I took this opportunity to read. I read about Britney Spears and her ongoing battle to gain her full independence and then an article about how learning a new language will increase one’s chances of not getting Alzheimers. Lest you think me shallow, I just finished my french lesson. Je suis encore très fatigué, mais au moins je suis moins inquiet, which means: I am still very tired, but at least I am not so worried. Added plus, I may even be able to purchase a train ticket and find a bathroom when in France next year! Now to tackle a few pages of Marcus Aurelius.
In stitching news, oh there’s always stitching news(!) I’m working on three different projects simultaneously and am feeling okay about that. Usually this would make me anxious; I don’t like having lots of projects going at once, but at the moment, it’s fine. I have at least four other projects in various stages of completion, but have put them aside for now so that I can concentrate on these three.
And today is the 2nd day of my Dorset Buttons Gone Wild Scissor Case Workshop. We are beginning to stitch the Dorset Buttons and the stitching around the wool shapes. This is one of two workshops I will be teaching again in the fall with thread kits AND fabric kits now available!
I just posted a new video about using the Helix Angle and Circle Maker on fabric with mixed results. I think there are definite possibilities for this little gadget. Go see for yourself.
My mother sends me some truly fabulous things, among them is this video of the Denver Airport. I promise you, this in NOT what you’re expecting!
As the Denver Airport is one that I have frequented many, many times I was particularly pleased to see this. All airports should have things like this. It would make the not so fabulous air travel experience just a bit nicer and more fun.
On the stitching front, I finished my pin cushion or potpourri satchel or whatever else you might want to use this for. So much fun!
The Basics Cushion
As you may remember this was begun as a demonstration for The Basics Workshop that I taught and which I’ll be teaching again this fall. Kits are available!
I have to end this post with a comment to all of you who watched my video entitled, The Ice Cream Situation, which should really be called, The Ice Cream Situation: A Cautionary Tale, but that title while better, is too long and unruly for most social media postings, so I went with the truncated version. Now many of you have reported looking for this particular ice cream, some even saying they went to several different stores in search of it. And yet, this was meant to be a “cautionary tale“! You know, one of those – do as I say, not as I do, videos, but it is now obvious to me that hand stitchers are a bunch of rebels. No, seriously. Rebels. All of you. And here’s another thing that I’ve decided; you’re rebels AND you like to live dangerously. Either that or we (I’m including myself in this group) have a fatalistic streak that forces us to do things that we have been warned, explicitly, will be our undoing. This had to be said. I do not want to be the one who says, I told you so, when there are tears and stories of cases of ice cream being shipped all over the place, except that I did tell you. Just pointing that out. I told all of you and I have it on record.
It all comes down to what you’re willing to say out loud. Which, one could argue, if you’re asking yourself this question it’s probably best left unsaid. You know?
However, never one to stay quiet, I did just post a video regarding The Ice Cream Situation. You can view it below.
So there’s that.
Do you ever feel like there’s so much going on you can’t really keep up and so you end up being less productive rather than the reverse simply because it all feels like too much? It’s all about balance, I think. That’s kind of what’s been going on around here lately. Nothing bad, all good things, but just a lot of things. So I’m scrambling, and feeling a bit like a hamster on a tread mill, moving quickly but not really getting anywhere. That’s how it feels anyway. I know this isn’t the truth, but it feels that way. Feelings are not facts. Hence the deep dive into The Ice Cream Situation. It’s okay, I’ve extricated myself and am now ready to face my never ending “To Do List”.
I’ve written about the To Do List before. It’s kind of an essential part of my day, a kind of road map to follow and then whatever doesn’t get done gets rolled over to the next day. Kind of like frequent flier miles or data storage on your phone, except there are no hidden costs. A win-win, right? Well, sort of, except that sometimes that to do list feels like an anchor so then one has to ignore it or make the decision that it’s a “to do tomorrow” list. But you can see where this leads, can’t you? Fortunately I don’t often procrastinate and my To Do list can be very bossy, but in a good way.
To Do List: email so and so.
Me: Right. I’ll do that in a few hours.
To Do List: follow up with a phone call.
Me: Yes, ok. I’ll do that in a few hours.
To Do List: Give it 24 hours then email again.
Me: Oh all right. I’ll send them an email now.
To Do List: Work out cost of thread kits
Me: Ugh.
To Do List: Work out cost of fabric kits
Me: Isn’t there anything on this list that is actually fun?
To Do List: Work on improv piece.
Me: Oh! I can do that!! That will be fun.
To Do List: Work on Abstraction piece.
Me: Oh, yes, another fun project. I’ll pull that out.
To Do List: Clear up sewing machine desk area.
Me: Right, now where is my improv piece?
To Do List: Website Issues – (and then a three page list of things that I need to learn, figure out or actually do)
Me: I love my improv piece. That’s what I’m going to work on.
And so it goes. I’ve found that if I put at least a few things on the list that I really, really love doing then I can usually start on that and then work in a few of the not so fun things in between. Kind of like when you’re hiking and get a blister and then keep going anyway because you know the view at the summit is going to be spectacular and you don’t want to miss it.
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