Tangled Stitch

Sorry for the unimaginative title. No photos. It's a weekend and I've been with the men all day and I'm a bit fried. No imagination. No inspiration. Nothing. We went out looking for a certain no contract cellphone for son who wants unlimited texts with the both of them. Trouble with having an only child when they are almost an adult is that just about any sentence by any of us can be treated by any one of us as some sort of insult so it's weekend at the Bickersons. I did find a little embroidery time tucked away in there. I also raided the chocolate peanut butter eggs(why are they selling Easter candy so darn early anyway?). So that is my inspiration for the day. And even though I'm uninspired and frazzled there is no where else on the earth I'd rather be and no two people I'd rather be perturbed by.

Finally a prompt I don't have to use my imagination for as I used my imagination a while back to create Blue Moons. This piece is one of my favorites. All the planets were aligned and it worked as a project, I found the perfect backing to mount it on without having to even manipulate it and it looked beautiful framed. I had a place where it was supposed to go in my imagination but liked it so much it is still sitting on my wall. Sometimes a piece just works, it comes out better then even you could imagine. It kind of makes up for some of those projects that sound great in theory but work better in our own mind. Every artist has them. Those projects that you follow through on, in my case putting every stitch on the fabric and then you end up with what? Lately I've been reworking some of those pieces, I'll add them to my gallery when completed. But the Blue Moons was just a joy. I hope you find your inspiration some night out amongst the moonbeams. Keep stitching.

To knot or not to knot that is the question. I've provided a visual heart pillow with french knots even though I'm not speaking french today and the pillow is quite old. I have dabbled in both knotting and unknotting(both in embroidery and life). I was taught by my grandmother to knot, but I also know that it is more pure and basic to not knot. Recently I have tried to go back to being a non knotter but especially when I am working on my tangled thread designs it is very cumbersome to not knot and it gets even messier then the occassional knot makes it look. So I wondered if any of you hand embroiderers out there knot your knots too? Bloggily I am a bit knotted today as my hubby has the laptop and I am on the slow as molasses tangled with trivia old computer which takes 10 minutes just to go to a different website. So being kind of all knotted up with no place to go I decided to discuss knots of the embroidery kind and hightail it out of here. Just as a footnote to yester...

This is a Welcome Friends sampler I cross-stitched when my son was a toddler. I believe it was from a sampler chart which I purchased. It was long ago and far away and as you can read I can't really remember where it came from(but it is a lovely cross stitch sampler). Back then I didn't even know I had something within myself that others would want to see so I did charts and kits and other people's patterns(Knowing what I know today I would give credit to the designer but unfortunately it so long ago and far away that I wouldn't even begin to know where to look for it). My topic for today sort of relates to it so I decided to share it. Today was a day for clearing out cobwebs. Last night I dreamed of rejection. Faceless people rejecting me and me confronting them. Very vague and I guess I could have forgotten it altogether if I hadn't woken up with that dreaded feeling of rejection that hits you right in the gut. I thought embroidering would somehow knock tha...

No pictures today. I'm busy working on a hand embroidery piece which I'll share soon. It's a goddess. My first one. I finished Crossings last week my new interpretation of a cross, just have to frame that one. I took a creative break last night as I watched the Oscars. I loved it. I loved the Loved the beautiful dresses. My favorite was Penelope Cruz's. I loved the story about how she saw it in a store 7 years ago and said one day she would wear it(how it was still available after 7 years I'm not quite sure). I also loved her speech, somehow when we look at the beautiful talented Penelope Cruz we don't think of her upbringing. I loved all the speeches. I was thrilled with the winners. I don't think I've enjoyed the Oscars that much in a long time. I thought Hugh Jackman was great. I loved the past winners introducing the nominees. I thought the stage was beautiful and I loved the Swarovski crystals dangling above. The only quibble was th...

This is a knit bag I made a while ago but never took a picture of. It was knit using brown sheep sable(love, love, love that color) and cascade turqouise. It was knit in a rib lined with satin. I haven't been knitting very much lately and am trying to inspire myself to put the embroidery needle down and have some fun knitting( I have fun embroidering too but it's different). It's snowing here in my little section of Upstate New York. Not really sticking to the roads and when I went out earlier it was more like rain on the windshield. I came home and listened to CD#3 of Dave Matthews in Central Park, ate a little lunch, did a little laundry and embroidered my new piece. I can't wait to share it when I am finished because it is a project special to my own heart. I'm going to watch the Oscars later. Don't really go to the movies but I pick Sean Penn and Kate Winslet from the commercials. I hope Heath Ledger wins because he was a great actor and he should ha...

Hi All! No I'm not brokenhearted just lazy. This piece is sitting on my family room wall and I have never put it on my blog before. It is a hand embroidered heart on tea stained material and framed. It was done about 2 years ago and although I've gotten a few nibbles nobody else wanted to take it home. I guess perhaps people don't like to be reminded of a broken heart. I thought of a wonderful inspiration about silver, much better then my previous foray. It has to do with my hair which is now brown and blondish but for months was reddish and silvery gray. It drove everyone crazy but it was a life altering thing for me. I finally gave up the idea of being what others wanted me to be. I'm sure we all know family and friends who think they know what is better for your life then you do. I was told I was too young to have gray hair but if I had gray hair I obviously wasn't too young to have it. Seemed to be a constant source of conversation some of which I st...

This is my entry for Inspire Me Thursday's prompt of Silver. It is a piece of Ivory silk, 2 skeins of silver embroidery thread and 2 skeins of black. Now I hope I can find an inspiration as to what to do with it. Sometimes these prompts are so easy and sometimes you really have to think out of the box. Silver is probably very easy for some but for me it's not really because I don't wear jewelry. I wear my wedding ring and my cross necklace and that's it. I used to wear my mom's platinum ring with blue sapphires but one of the sapphires fell out and I figured it was safer to keep it as a memory. For a short while I was into marcasite jewelry but even that became too difficult. Broken chains, lost stones, knots in the chains you name it. Kind of ironic that I can get just about any knot out of thread but when it comes to the chain on a necklace I'm a bit clumsy at it. Can't get them out no matter how hard I try. So I never take my cross necklace off...

Today I offer you a handful of flowers. This is a piece I did last summer sometime and realized I never took a photo of. It a hand embroidered hand with pink flowers and swirly green leaves. Today is a glorious day because after such a long, long time I went back to Tai Chi today. I loved learning tai chi and unblocked much of my creativity the first time around. So now that I am feeling just a wee bit better due to a better diet and some exercise I impulsively decided to go back to Tai Chi. I loved the warmups as I have always loved the warm ups. I felt a flush of warmth and tingliness all through my body, I thought it was a hot flash but I was supposed to feel warm and tingly what a wonderful thing. I didn't remember all the steps but remembered enough of them to not feel totally embarrassed. I am now wondering why I stopped doing something I loved so much. A friend recently told me that I can only focus on one thing at a time. The first time I went to the gym it became...

Since I love blogging and I never seem to have enough of my work framed and finished and I want to blog as much as I can, I decided to show my unfinished projects or whatever I'm working on for the day. This is my last little piece of watercolored red orangey fabric. It was too small to put in a frame and I was inspired to do a dragonfly(I made a lovely green one for my friend Emily in a frame for Christmas) I decided that I'd hand embroider the dragonfly and then perhaps try my hand at an art quilt. I still have to find the perfect fabrics to accompany it and then try to make it look as good as I can make it look with the limited quilting skills I currently have so I figured this may be the first and last time you ever see it(only kidding I'll share it even if it is a bomb). So here it is. Other news I have finally gone back to the YMCA and am walking around the track. I reached the bottom health wise dealing with the big M and finally got desperate enough to go on a d...

This is one of my latest pieces finally matted and framed. The name of this piece is Just Hand. It was given that name because it was done just for the joy of the stitch. Just Hand was made on watercolored fabric. There are dozens of french knots which are my favorite stitch(or at the very least one of my favorite stitches) along with the backstitch, the feather stitch, the spider stitch. Some of my favorite symbols are also included in this piece, the heart, the infinity symbol and circles. I also enjoy doing swirly lines which seem to pop up and disappear at different intervals. They are a constant in my usual work. Just Hand is a departure for me as I have strayed from my usual technique. I wanted to stretch myself and also to use embroidery stitches that I have only used in small doses to complete some of my smaller pieces in a larger piece. I have included both the photo of Just Hand as a framed piece and a photo highlighting the details. Please let me know if you wou...

Hi All! This is my latest piece. It is called Hand of Tree. It is a hand embroidered hand with a blue sky and a green tree(and yes I realize trees are brown but I like to make mine green). It combines my two favorite symbols both the hand and the tree. And my two favorite colors to work with pale blues and green. I was going to bring it to the gallery who accepted my work but after framing and matting it I don't think I can part with it just yet. I guess that is the consequence of using your favorite symbols and colors in a piece. I have a few more pieces to frame and a few more items to finish so more pictures will be forthcoming and I will try to think of something clever or interesting to say. I hope you are having a wonderfully creative day. See you soon.

I love to crochet lace patterns using bedspread cotton. There was a time not so long ago that I could lose myself with just a ball of cotton and a small steel crochet hook. Hours after hours just crocheting beautiful lace patterns. What a wonderful way to get lost for a few hours or days! Very delicate and beautiful. If you look at my flicker photos you will see a few examples of christening outfits and purses that I crocheted in another lifetime. Maybe writing about them will inspire me to pick it up again. Thank you Inspire Me Thursday. See you soon.

This is my entry for fold. Recently I had an order for wallets that easily folded up and closed. I didn't have a pattern so I worked out a template and made a couple. This was one of my favorites when I was making it but for some reason every time I folded it, it was a bit lopsided. It still is lopsided so it's mine. I don't usually share my mistakes but fold sort of took over and I kept passing the wallet on my work table. Finally I put the two of them together and came up with the idea that so much of our lives is spent folding things up and trying to keep them neat and tidy and that no matter how much we try sometimes life isn't neat and tidy and things cannot just be folded up. Life is good but in reality I am a little lopsided and a little less neat and tidy then I wish to be. Now it is time to accept that I am like the wallet and move on with it. Keep stitching!

This is my latest piece. It is named Mighty Sun. This was my first foray into watercoloring on fabric and I have to say that sometimes I would be taken about when I was embroidering at what a nice contrast there was between the red embroidery of the sun and the coolish blue of the fabric. The green figure is a nice contrast too but not as much as the sun. Perhaps I just have the Sun on my mind because it is cold up here in upstate NY. I have a foot of snow on my front lawn so perhaps that is why I made the figure green too. A harbinger or a melancholy for spring. Mighty Sun is going into a fiber art show at a local gallery. When it is installed there I will share a bit more. Still a bit superstitous and insecure until someone accepts my work to be shown. Besides the obvious reason I named my piece Mighty Sun because I was inspired by a lovely song sung by Andrea Bocelli on his album Sogno. Andrea Bocelli never fails to inspire me both with his music and with the inspirational ...

Hi All! No I didn't fall off the face of the earth, my life is just happening. Been busy embroidering(not framing unfortunately so no new picks YET)and I just joined Facebook and put my blog there too so I thought I needed a picture for visual interest so went back to the crypt and found my first hand. It's called Lifelines. I love it and luckily I own it. I shared Lifelines because I love to hand embroider hands(in fact have a few waiting to be framed). I guess perhaps it has to do with the stitch and my hands since my hands are what brings me the most joy(besides family of course). I've been trying new techniques including watercoloring fabric. I finished a lovely piece which I will share when I figure out how to frame it. I was going to show it unframed but it would not do it justice. You see it was another one of my just popped into my head designs which do not seem to fit into an ordinary frame( or the truth is it was my first watercolored fabric, the waterco...