Tangled Stitch

This is a piece I did during the summer before the summer became my long dark night of the soul. It is called Crossing Also. I looked back quite a ways and realized I hadn't share it and I really love it . Watercolored fabric with a variation of a cross and lots and lots of french knots. I'm getting the itch to do more hand embroidery so I'm hoping just posting it will inspire me to break out the watercolors and the embroidery needles. Crossings Also is now at the Albany Shaker Museum for the season and for some reason I'm feeling really empowered about having my work at Albany Shaker and having the universe(and the lovely volunteers) work at selling it. I've thought a lot about my future plans and have to say no second thoughts about limiting myself to the Albany Shaker craft fairs, my wonderful sales outlets and hopefully very soon Etsy. I'm still working on my office almost as much as my crafts in hope that soon I will be organized enough to wade out i...

The photograph accompanying this post is Water Goddess, its hand embroidery on watercolored fabric with Kantha stitching surrounding it(which I tried because of my fondness for Spirit Cloth and Bee Creatives wonderful work). The Kantha stitching really made the water goddess pop so thanks to those two wonderful inspiring ladies. The Water Goddess is now residing in the Albany Shaker Museum for the holiday show which runs from October 31st to December 19th. There are so many lovely crafters, even more then last year and such wonderful wonderful work. My friend Cheryl(the lady's got glass) has beautiful bowls and vases and the most extraordinary ornaments. My friend Pat has beautiful jewelry made from precious metal clay, my friend Karen is there with her beautiful hand knit children sweaters, my friend Becky(from Purl One and Purl two) is there with her beautiful felted purses(I hate to felt and love to see her beautiful wares). Well I guess you get the idea that you can find ...

This is one of the cute little knit purses I made for the Albany Shaker Holiday Show which starts this weekend. I love to make them and bead them and yes even line them. I think I'm going to make some for the Katbird Shop and New Leaf Gallery. Busy, busy, busy is the word. I won't be able to completely relax till I am set up on Wednesday and on my home. But I am enjoying the making much more then I was earlier this year. They say the way to abundance is to do what you love and somewhere it became more about something else(like money). I love what I do but when you try to put a price tag on something you love, it becomes something other then something you love. But the love and joy of creativity is back and we'll see where that leads to. Hope you are having a very stitchy day. I'm finally feeling better this evening after my sinuses went haywire. I'm eating so well I thought my immune system was working better so I stopped the Nasonex. Well after a few days ...

I'm amazed today at just how little it takes to make me happy. Yesterday and today I have been getting ready for the big holiday show at Albany Shaker and so I decided to make a few holly and berry pillows. Well I was embroidering and listening to Andrea Bocelli and I felt wonderfully peaceful and wonderfully happy. I had forgotten just how little it takes to make me peacefully, joyfully happy. Somewhere in the last year I lost the joy of embroidering and it makes me sooooooo happy to have found the joy again. That is my quest now to work with joy and happiness and peace. I also finished my circle hand which is going to visit the Katbird Shop shortly afterward(the most wonderful shop in Schenectady with unique gifts in every(and I do mean every) price range). I still have to frame it and then I will share it. No mats to my amazement so it will have to wait till a trip to Michaels so perhaps later in the week. I'll let you know when it is in it's new home and share a...

This has to be my favorite scarf at the moment. I love it so much I was tempted to pilfer it for myself instead of bringing it to the Albany Shaker Museum next week for their annual Christmas Show but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I can always make another one. It is different greens and blue circles connected by a two crossover brown pieces. It was a challenge but I love the way it turned out and I'm hoping someone else will too. And now I have to make another one! I hope you are having a wonderful day and I'll be back soon. Keep stitchin!

This is an earlier piece of hand embroidery. It is called life lines. Right now my lines are a little tangled and my brain is a little foggy. I had a delicious cinnamon bun thing which made me hyper after I ate it and now I'm sleepy and tired(which might be a good thing) and I have a massive headache(which is a not so good thing). I have been having so many dreams lately. Both the sleep kind and the awake kind. But even my dreams are intersecting at the moment. At least once a week or sometimes even more I wake up from a dream feeling like I lost something. I never remember what it is I lost and it has gotten so bad that I am now waking my husband up when I wake up in a start. So today armed with a sugar high I went and researched what dreams of loss mean. Two things it seems. Dealing with a great transition in your life and that is certainly true with all the changes in my life, in my body, in my relationships and in my work. The other meaning is a fear of success and t...

What a joy! I've been to Weight Watchers dozens of times and frankly was a Weight Watchers reject. I tried South Beach but I couldn't live without my pasta and bread and cereal. I love vegetables, not so much fruit. So after I turned 50 and my body told me it was 50 I had to think of something, so I looked on line and tried to find the pros and the cons. There are lots and lots of pros which increase every single day and no cons that I can find. It's been 2 months and I'm still on it 95% of the time(a new world's record) and I've lost about 10 pounds(11 at the Y and 9 at the doctor) in a month and probably lost weight before the Y and the doctor(I stopped weighing myself when I reached a certain number). I eat all the pasta I want, lots and lots of vegetables which probably cuts down on the pasta without me even knowing it. Delicious whole grain bread, olive oil a little fish, almost no meat, a little cheese(or a lot of cheese mostly to put on pasta or ...

I have a new found appreciation of blogging and the wonderful blogging community(not really so new I have always been inspired and supported even when I perhaps didn't deserve it) so I am just checking in to let you know I am in the midst of a MAJOR insomnia episode so tomorrow hopefully after a good night of bright eyed and bushy tailed sleep I will be ready to continue or commence my crusade to buy handmade, buy American and buy from your local mom and pop business! PS if you have any homeopathic ideas for sleep please pass them along, two nights in a row of being up before the birds are up is not a good thing.

Well this meandering year has almost come to a close and I think I am pretty sure my craft show days are behind me except of course for the Albany Shaker Museum which is the best craft show experience I have ever and I do mean ever had. I want to spend my time creating work that I love and blogging. Both of which it has been a struggle to maintain considering how many inexpensive doodads one needs to create to even attempt to do the craft show market. And then when those inexpensive doodads don't sell it's even worse. So I will be opening an Etsy shop up soon(and I do mean soon, I have promised my husband I will organize my office before I undertake a virtual opportunity) and I will be posting pictures of my work which soon will be located in the Albany Shaker Museum and The Katbird Shop, New Leaf Gallery and Artcetera. I am having soooooooo much fun creating things, I love it in fact. I love to embroider, I love to knit and I love to crochet. I am loving taking more ris...

Passion! That is the name of this piece and the perfect beginning for my news of the day. Passion resides at The Katbird Shop until someone decides they must bring Passion home. The Katbird Shop is located on Liberty Street in Schenectady a little bit away from the restaurant Pinhead Susans(delicious food by the way).I will be giving a class on crochet on Wednesday October 21st at 1:00. It is a beginner crochet class and I will teach single crochet and double crochet (and of course the chain stitch without all else would be futile) and the student will put those stitches into their own scarf(bring your own yarn 2 skeins and a size H crochet needle). I'm recommending inexpensive worsted weight for the class because although the students will go home with a scarf the first project is always the trickiest. The cost is $25.00 and if you are interested in attending you can call Kathy at the Katbird Shop at (518)381-1671. I also brought Kathy some lovely scarves and bags and am ad...

That is the color of the bag I am highlighting today. Brown, multiple colors of brown, textured, very textured, hand crocheted from my finest stash. I love the way this bag feels, I know you miss that part of the sensory experience but I love the softness of this bag anyway. Life has been good. I have been very, very industrious and have worked my way out of yet another funk(this was only a couple of days by the way). I'm getting used to my son being gone most of the day and even a few nights with out with some lovely lady friends of his. I've been enjoying my wonderful friends and have brought a few things to Katbird Shop and Artcetera if you are in the neighborhood. I'm ready to try and find another outlet too as I am finally over the summer thing. To be honest I think I needed to be available for my family this summer and I was. I've also decided to let my work represent me more soulfully so a lot of my new work(which I haven't photographed yet) is a littl...