Packing

Moving day has come and gone but the boxes remain.  As a creature of habit, I thrive on routine, organization and everything in its place.  For someone like me, moving and change is a huge challenge to my sanity.

To feel at home and less restless, my first priority is to organize my sewing room.   The very last thing that I packed besides the obvious essentials was my trusty Bernina sewing machine.  I had not even used it in the last month but just knowing that it was available was a source of comfort. 

For Nick, I noticed that his favorite drum set was the last item to be packed.  As a drum teacher, he plays everyday however, that specific drum set had not been played for some time either. His drums mean to him what my sewing machine means to me. They both represent a huge part of our identity. We all have our "thing" whether it be cooking, gardening, reading, writing or whatever. I can't imagine a life void of a passion. It is that "thing" that keeps us going, keeps us grounded and makes life rich.  Embrace that item that you can't bear to pack in a box- it is what makes you who you are.

A New Project

 

There is a brand new project in the works!  Several posts back, I was waiting on news to see if we won the contract on our dream house. After waiting on pins and needles, we received the good news! A gorgeous home with plenty of unique details...and plenty of work!

 

 

 

I'm so excited to make this house our home. I will share some of the progress as we make the transformation.  Aside from my daily morning stitching, it seems as though most of my art time will be consumed in renovating the house.  With new life milestones comes inspiration.  But unfortunately I think I will be painting more walls and wood trim than fabrics to stitch on!

A Memory Through Cloth

 

 

We said good bye to this beautiful lady earlier this week.  My Nana Dot, as she was called by everyone including my friends, lived to be 95! She was a happy, positive person who never complained.  She loved Big Band music, coffee with sugar cakes and her whiskey sours! As far as crafting and art were concerned, I never saw her take an interest in any of it but she always proudly displayed my gifted hand made wares.  It sometimes even surprised me when I would come across something I made and gave to her so may years ago... Something I had forgotten about would be proudly sitting on her side table or kitchen counter.

 

My mother found a box of vintage handkerchiefs that had been in my grandma's house. She gave them to me knowing how much I would appreciate them.  It's indescribable but there is something about a cherished piece of cloth that holds so much meaning. Opening the box and touching the pieces of fabric, I felt close to my Nana Dot.  I could smell her house and imagine her folding and pressing the handkerchiefs.

 

These pieces will sit with me for awhile.  I will give it time until I know how to use them. I know that eventually I will figure out the perfect way to stitch into them and create something that will honor her memory and help me heal as well.

 

Coffee & Stitches

When you really get into the practice of your meditative stitching it becomes something you look forward to each morning. And for me this means coffee and stitches.  The smell and sounds of the coffee brewing against the quiet of the morning is my favorite part of the day. No matter how rushed I am, I find that giving myself the time to slow down helps me better manage the fast pace of the day that lies before me.

 

My sweet dog Jasper also appreciates this morning routine as it means that he gets a rare chance to be up on the couch!  It also really feels good to have this time with him before I have to leave to go off to work.

 

 

Currently I've been working on a morning mantra piece.  This is going to be a class sample for a workshop that I will be giving later in the summer.  I love the look of beautiful script created with a simple backstitch.  The word I chose was Grateful.  I have so much to be grateful for and it helps me remember that as I stitch out the word on a beautiful vintage handkerchief. Getting lost in the word and what it means becomes easy.  You focus on each stitch and with each stitch is the reward of creating a beautiful mark in the cloth. A great way to begin the day.

 

Rampion

In the tale of Rapunzel, the allure of the root plant, Rampion was impossible to resist. It was ultimately this temptation that led to the ill fate for baby Rapunzel.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the idea of home has been at the forefront of my mind for quite awhile.  So when I heard the story of Rapunzel being retold on NPR several months ago, I could not help but have a new perspective on the tale. Rampion, otherwise known as a root vegetable, was the source of desire. We can all identify with this...roots and in its more basic form, shelter, is a fundamental source of human need.

With this piece, Rampion, my series into the home has begun. I have so many different ideas and alternate ways of looking at this topic that I can't wait to begin.  However, life imitates art imitates life.  The next piece might take a little longer...We are moving into a new home, one that we plan to stay in for a very long time. Our own roots are being planted and we will watch them grow!

Home

What does Home mean to you? Is it a white picket fence with a perfectly manicured lawn, a status symbol of accomplishing all of your goals? Do you think of the home as a symbol of security, domesticity, family?  Or is it an essential form of shelter? For the past two years I have become preoccupied with these ideas.

And this is how my work comes to life. It all started with a trip to Washington DC during the coldest night of the year. I saw so many homeless makeshift beds over the sidewalk vents.  It was not a new sight but for some reason on that particular night, I was haunted by the image of these beds across the backdrop of the DC capital skyline.  That skyline which represents power, money and prestige grossly contrasted against a living visual of  poverty.

Flash forward to my own personal life in the past two years.  I went from living a comfortable independent life in my own home to happily moving in with my fiancé. Despite the joyous reason for my home upheaval, there was a lot of adjustments to work through. I'm a creature of habit and love to be settled- not to mention have all of my sewing supplies in their place and out of a moving box!

Now happily settled into my new home, more exciting changes are on the horizon- a wedding, once again a new home to move into, and more decorating!

While all of these changes are wonderful, the haunting image of  the disparity of my own selfish complaints of home versus the need for home as a source of survival has spurred a series on the home. My first piece is nearly finished as I gather research and thoughts for the next few. I look forward to working through some of my feelings as I explore the various implications that Home represents.

 

 

 

Too Many Choices

Sometimes, when digging through my stash of threads there are just so many choices!  It makes it hard to make a decision. But yet, every time I go into a quilt or craft store I'm so tempted by the beautiful colors of embroidery floss that it's hard to resist not adding to my collection! Truly, for the projects at hand, the colors that I need are already within my reach.

 

In life as in stitching, sometimes what you think you need is something you already have. We can spend our time adding to our stash or we can use what is already there. We can make the simplest of decisions become the most difficult tasks. We can stop searching for the answer and instead, let our intuition guide us.  The thread choice after all is only part of the larger piece of art.