Tangled Stitch

This piece is called Transitions it is available at Valley Artisans Market. Transitions is the name of my game at the moment. Sometimes in our lives we just have to keep moving forward to transition to a different life even when the life we were leading looks just dandy to those who don't live with us. I guess the point of my post is, you and I can never tell what happens behind anybody's door. We live our lives in secret telling only our closest friends and family what is going on and why we are doing what we are doing. That leaves the door wide open for gossip and innuendo and leaves all of us going through these kinds of transitions shell-shocked and down right crazy(in my case) I don't know anything at the moment. Half of the time I'm looking to go apply in McDonalds just so I can move out of my house. The other half is saying finding a job isn't that easy so I'll just write my blog and pretend I'm a writer and make my art and pretend I'm ...

As you can see I am still Moving Along on this piece. It is very colorful(sort of like myself) and I am enjoying working on it. The colors keep me happy and the little stitches keep me sane. I am finding therapy in art and keep moving along the path God has chosen for me. I believe in my dreams and myself for a change. I am exactly where I am supposed to be today doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing which is embroidering to my favorite music. I need a day of happy art making reflection before moving forward tomorrow. Life is a little deep at the moment and requires more than a happy attitude so I'm doing the work I can do and giving myself a breather from the reality of reality. Have a great day! Find your dreams! Believe in them wholly! Then just let God and the Universe figure out the details. Blessings.

After two tries at trying to write a very insightful blog post about my soul I have decided that it is just too hot and muggy to try to be profound. I am still working on the piece Moving On and it is moving right along. I am going to treat myself to an afternoon of music and embroidery and perhaps tomorrow I'll tell you about my soul or perhaps not. I can say one thing about souls. I believe in them. I believe in a giving and loving universe. That when you are quiet and contemplative, soul speaking and soul searching are easier. So on that note bless you and may you find as much peace on your journey as you need today(and be thankful your air-conditioning is working). Give A Little Bit is a song by Supertramp, it's a great song and you can find the version you like the best on YouTube(or give yourself a gift and listen to it for the first time).

My cousin sent me this email and it describes my thoughts of the troops perfectly. No matter how we feel about all these horrible wars and the mess that our government officials have put us through for the last 10 years. Our thoughts and our prayers should always be with the men who risk their lives and sacrifice their family time to serve our country. A heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you. THIS IS THE BEST EMAIL OF THE DAY!!! As I came out of the supermarket that sunny day, pushing my cart of groceries towards my car, I saw an old man with the hood of his car up and a lady sitting inside the car, with the door open. The old man was looking at t he engine. I put my groceries away in my car, and continued to watch the old gentleman from about twenty five feet away. I saw a young man in his early twenties with a grocery bag in his arm walking towards the old man. The old gentleman saw him coming too, and took a few steps towards him. I saw the old gentleman point to ...

Day in the Life is a song by the Beatles on Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.  Moving Forward is still in the process of being made, making progress every day and had a great day yesterday working on it at the coop and home. I was going to take the weekend off of blogging because I don't really have anything new to talk about. I'm still looking for a job, looking for a home and moving forward to my future.  Slowly, very slowly.  But I'm moving.  But it also part of my dream to be a writer so here I am. I am on a journey from the life I've lived to the life I want to have.  I have to trust that there is a god or a universe that  knows where my journey will lead.  I have to trust it completely or I will stay stuck in the moment and not move anywhere.  Fear has been a constant companion in the last week but so has faith.  Being fearful allows you to just stop dead in your tracks and let your life happen to you instead of letting you mak...

I hope you have a wonderful memorial day weekend.  I will be thinking of my dad who served in Korea.  Please think of our current soldiers and the great sacrifice they and their families make every day in our name.  Whether you agree with the wars or not, the soldiers doing their jobs need our support.  Thank you to all of them, especially my cousin Gerard and my friend's son Brad.  Blessings and safe homecoming. I will be back on Tuesday with the piece I shared yesterday completed.  Have fun in the sun and enjoy your families. 

  This is the piece I was working on yesterday and it doesn't have a name but it may just be called moving on.  It is a transitional piece tying up some loose threads both literally and metaphorically. My whole life is changing and that has me just a little bit jittery. When I'm jittery the best thing I can do is embroider.  So if you need anything hand embroidered now is the time to request it.  But seriously making momentous changes in your life can be completely unnerving.  Fear has a big place in my head and I am trying so many different ways to deal with that fear and unfortunately for myself and everyone around me I probably haven't handled it the best way I could have. All I can do right now is be myself and just keep moving.  I can't change who I am just to get a job that isn't suited for me.  And I can't change who I am just to get a little bit more in a divorce settlement.  I just want to walk towards a more peaceful and happy...

This is the current piece I am working on.  It is a tangled thread pieces and since I am a bit caught up in my tangle of a life I thought I would talk about my process while I search for some peace and some answers.  This is my favorite kind of piece because it really starts with just a simple little design and then the colors and the needle take over.  I start with a simple drawing as my embroidery needle is better at illustrating then is a pencil.  I then find the largest bundle of tangled threads I can find and pick out one thread at a time and then I look at the piece and decide where it will best fit. Each different color expresses myself at that moment and boldly goes where no thread has gone before.   I then embroider, filling in all the empty spaces with stitchery.  Making the piece whole and unified. I love color and the interaction between each thread and it's intended location is a song to me. The randomness of picking a thread out ...

This piece is available at Samantha's Cafe in Glens Falls NY. This morning I am inspired to live in the moment.  The song Lasan by Michael Kiwanuka is running through my mind. The message is about living every day like you're running out of time and saying the things you need to say and not leaving anything behind. As people we tend to worry about our past and worry about our future and we just don't realize that we have choices to make in the moment.  Are we going to appeal to our better angels or are we going to live with our demons?  Every person has a demon somewhere inside them and every person has an angel somewhere inside of them.  That is the choice of living in the moment, are you an angel or are you a demon? I had a soul enhancing day yesterday.  My friend Cheryl and her husband are singers in an oratory group and they were putting on a performance of Elijah by Felix Mendelssohn.  I didn't think I would like it but I went to support my frien...

Good morning and Happy Sunday.  This cross is still available in Etsy shop.  It is chock full of french knots, god's gift to this embroiderer.  I just love french knots they are a meditation for me which leads me to the topic of today. Meditation with the divine in any form you choose makes it easier to be creative and believe in the beauty and abundance of the universe right then in that very moment.  It's a gift of peace you give yourself and the calming influence of meditation is a gift of peace to everyone around you. I woke up this morning with a song in my heart again. Waking up with songs in my heart, the day seems to go better.   I have a very active mind with a lot of words swimming around it along with the song of the day.   It is hard to keep the negative words out when you are going through a life change or just moving around in your daily life.  But I have found that  meditation  stops the world for a little while...

The name of this piece is Dancing and it is in the private collection of my friend Cheryl.  Dance With Me is a song by Chaka Khan with a great video on Youtube for you listening and seeing pleasure. Music has the ability to transcend time and distance.  Every day millions of us are listening to the same song at the same moment somewhere in our great universe.  I just listened to the fabulously fabulous Aretha Franklin on my Zune Player.   Thirty songs of greatness all wrapped up in one collection of some of her greatest hits.  What an inspirational and empowering couple of hours that was. Who cannot be inspired by Respect which should be the freakin anthem for every single(and married) woman out there in the universe.   I was inspired to hand embroider a piece this morning which is already coming along and I can't wait to see how it turns out. Somehow I think looking backwards at music is a great place to start to find inspiration.  A lot of...

This piece is called Flowery Cross, it is framed in a 5x7 black frame and will be available on Etsy. When it comes right down to it we all have to trust and believe in something.  Do we trust the inner guidance of our souls or do we trust the real world? I believe in the power of a dream and the power of my soul.  I also believe it is possible to both trust the real world and trust our dream world. Sometimes we have to take a day job to be able to trust our dreams.  I truly believe in living from my soul and from my heart.  I would not have the life I have today did I not believe in things that others don't ordinarily see.  I believe in synchronicity and happenstance and that everything happens for a reason.  If something is destined to happen it's gonna happen eventually, all we have to do is look around in nature to see that.  Flowers don't have to fill out job applications or trust in their dreams they just grow, naturally and freely.  Bu...

This is my gardening angel.  I embroidered her yesterday and framed her today.  I haven't decided where she is going.   I might just keep her until Albany Shaker or maybe not but for now she lives with me as I am a terrible gardener.  I just look at the flowers and they wilt, unless of course they are annuals then they thrive. It could be a conspiracy amongst the annual flower growers of America or it could be that I'm not really a summer person and I prefer to be embroidering flowers in the air conditioning  instead of growing them.  Whatever the answer is at least I'll have my gardening angel until July(or maybe sooner if you need a gardening angel just email me). I think I will embroider some flowers next to curry good favor with the flower gods.  Thanks for reading.  Blessings to your gardens.  See you soon.

There once was a bird named Dotty.   She was given that name because of the beautiful green spots she had on her body that looked like a knot.   Dotty made friends very easily and was kind to all that she met in the forest.   Dotty thought all you had to be was nice and kind and all of the other animals would like you.   And a lot of them did, the squirrels, the chipmunks all liked Dotty and even the Bear, Bernie liked her.   But even in a forest where almost everyone liked Dotty some of the animals were not so kind, the fox would steal the eggs from the bird’s nest and there was a pesky beaver or two that just did not like Dotty.   They thought she tweeted too much out there in the forest and they were trying to get some rest.   So Dotty let those animals make her change who she really was.   She hid her beauty, stopped singing her beautiful song and hoped that those animals that didn’t like her would be her friend. One day while s...

Go Where Love Goes is the name of this piece and it is called that because it was just a doodle I added to for the love of color and embroidery.  This piece will be available on my Etsy page, which can be accessed through my blog. Go Where Love Goes is also a song by Andrea Bocelli about love and dreams and angels. Listening to my better angels I realize I have to just be for a while.  I've been immersed in chaos for more then a couple of months and I need to regroup and find what I really love and move on. Forgive me if I cluttered up your Facebook page while I was searching. Tangled Stitch will be my only blog for the moment.  I will be sharing pictures of my embroidery and fiber work and write whatever my intuition and inspirations tell me needs to be shared.  I'll check my email twice a day but that is basically the extent of my time on the computer. I am going to go where love goes and stitch myself to my favorite music or in silence whatever I think is ...

This love heart will be available on Etsy later on today. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams, live the life you've imagined. It was written by Henry David Thoreau many moons ago and it has been used to inspire millions.  So today I would like to address confidence or lack of it more likely and how I am taking the old rule book ripping out the pages and going confidently in the direction of my dreams. Growing up as I did, I never quite had confidence in myself.  I basically lived in fear.  Fear is one of those emotional states that you just don't even realize is there except for the fact that you plan your life instead of living it.  The idea that all of the abundance of the universe is available to you if you believe is a foreign concept when you are used to darkness, unhappiness and the fear that everything you love will be taken away from you.  That fear is actually a self fulfilling prophecy because it limits how far you are willing to walk ...

In the magical life of a unicorn everyone is accepted and loved for who they are, horns included.   You see a unicorn is neither a horse nor a hippo.   A unicorn is very unique and very special.   They have extra powers which make them very magical just like some of your friends are.    In the magical land of a unicorn everyone is allowed to make mistakes and accepted for who they are at that moment, so the magic can start up again the next day.   I think everyone of us is a magical unicorn, we each have our horsy moments when we nay, we have our rhino moments when we grunt and we have our lion moments when we roar.   But sometimes we are just happy little unicorns who are so grateful to be unicorns and magical. But every once in while in our magical unicorn life, we find something extra magical we didn’t know was out there. We find another unicorn that looks a little different and comes from a different town, but somehow they recognize t...

A Dozen Roses is available on Etsy. Have Love Will Travel is my favorite song by The Black Keys. Their music was the running soundtrack for my happy little life when my mornings were filled with embroidery and music.  Somewhere along the line I lost the music and stopped embroidering all the time.  I still embroider but not as much as I used to and frankly I haven't been living the happy little life either.  But today that all changes. All I know is that before I started to think about the Black Keys in the human sense, my soul was pretty freakin happy.  Yes happy.  I laughed, came out of my little turtle shell and frankly had a ball. Lost weight, started moving my life forward, even had the urge to Twitter remarkably funny non rock stars.   Every single day I woke up with a different Black Keys song in my head. Somewhere along the way I started to travel a different road, unhappiness with my current life and the burning urge to move on created a tr...

Tree Hand is available at Valley Artisans Market.  Please stop in and see it in person and see all the beautiful work by other artists.  I still have several pieces available in my Etsy shop so not adding anything new today but there are beautiful pieces available right now. This is one of my favorite pieces.  I love the colors in the background and it is my favorite hand.  I am working on a piece at the moment and still uncluttering so I can have room for the things I love.  Peace, love and understanding and I'll be back soon. Blessings

Out of all the gifts we are given unconditional  love is the one we carry with us all throughout  our lives.  We are all beings created out of love and all of us live in the womb.  Our  time there varies but we are unconditionally loved and given the nutrients that allow us to come out of the womb as fully formed human beings.  Our mother  carries our life in her womb from the moment we are conceived in love until the time we are brought into this world.   She is the one person we are most connected to during that time in the womb.  We are brought into the world and we need to depend on those who love us to survive our infancy.     If we are so blessed we have children of our own to love unconditionally.  They follow that circle of love and life.  We have to teach them to love, honor, and care about their fellow beings on this earth and to be kind.  We have to teach them to love themselves and to...

This piece is called Hope.  It was my first art piece made several years ago when I belonged to an artist cooperative and found my first stirrings as an artist.  It is now folded up but will be unfolded and available on Etsy soon. I don't know how clearly you can see the image in the center of the big black hole, but it is a hand with a gold star in it.  It is the hand that should be outreached to help anyone who is hopeless.  We live in the dark, we make plans, we get busy, we forget about our hopes and dreams.  We forget that we are beings of light and we must shine every day, all of us together in one beautiful collective feeling of hope, love, light, compassion. There are so many strings that bind us to each other.  There are the strings that go into making an embroidery piece.  There are the strings that make an afghan.  There are the strings of a guitar.  There are strings used in mending things, making them stronger, reinforcing ...

Today is a very special day.  It is my beautiful, loving son  Brian's  21st birthday.  I am so proud of the man he has become.  He has always been kind, loving, compassionate, responsible, humorous and he is  my reason for waking up every morning for the last 21 years.  I am so proud of him.  He is my sonshine. I can still remember Halloween when he was a baby.   He was sitting on the couch next to a big bowl of candy and getting such a kick out of playing with the candy wrappers in the bowl.  He was just laughing that wonderful infectious laugh that babies are just known for.  Whenever I hear a baby laughing I think of  Brian. When Brian was 5 or 6, he came home from school with a scratch on his neck.  I asked him what happened and he told me a boy on the bus grabbed him.  Being a 5 or 6 year old he didn't quite know how to explain the scratch, so I called the school and they told me a ...