I’ve been working on redesigning my website, and this has made me think about what I love about embroidery and what I want to share with the designs I sell. At the same time, this past month has felt overwhelming, with sickness, travelling and just the general busyness of managing four children and a business. When I’m creating an embroidery project, (or any kind of creative project for that matter) what I like about it is how it takes up just the right amount of brain capacity.
Concentrating on creating stitches by hand seems to free up brain space (ie. there is less space to worry about things) as well as calming my thoughts through the physical repetition of making stitches. When life feels incredibly busy, just sitting down to make a few stitches slows me down and creates a little space of peace.
This past month I’ve been in a kind of frenzy of creating. It doesn’t feel ordered and calm, but more reactive and as a way to deal with the frustration of not being able to focus. However, as a friend once told me, there are worse ways to deal with stress!
I have enjoyed experimenting with painting, and had an aha-moment when I realised that all my life I’ve had a set of rules at the back of my mind about how watercolour “should” be done, and have always felt the lack of skill holding me back. But watching my daughters paint and then just grabbing a paintbrush and adding colour to paper felt really fun, and I gave myself permission to just put the paint where and how I wanted to. Have you ever felt this way about a particular form of making? While I’m a big fan of learning a skill well, there is also something to be said for more play in creating.
I also wanted to share photos of February and March’s patterns, part of my series to create a repeating pattern every month. I’m creating these patterns as a way to reflect the rhythm of the seasons and plan to use them in future embroidery patterns. If you follow me on instagram, I’ve posted a few videos about the process.
One of the new embroidery patterns I’m designing at the moment uses a sweet pea pattern I carved as a stamp last summer. Another video I shared recently on instagram shows a sneak peak of this pattern as part of a stitch tutorial. Would you be interested in more video stitch tutorials? I know there are a lot out there already.
On that note, and with the promise of spring and tulips and daffodils in the air, I hope you can enjoy some peaceful moments of creating this week (or reactive stress-reducing creating!)