Tangled Stitch

I love this hand crocheted scarf.  Ok I've said it, I love this scarf.  I especially love the colors.  Yes I know you cannot see the colors very clearly in the picture.  The center circle is this lovely greenish brown pinkish color and the outer color is this lovely brownish reddish color and they offset each other perfectly.  And they are circles.  What more could you ask for?  This scarf is only available on the blog now for $45.00.  If you wish to purchase it, you can email me or comment with your email.  I am getting ready for the busiest season of the year and Albany Shaker is next week(can you believe it?) and then I will be starting a new circle. I have signed up with an artist representative in Albany, more information on that soon.  I'm living in Whitehall but want to keep a presence down Albany way so I've found a wonderful company to represent me.  I'm very excited.  I''m bouncing back and forth at the moment w...

I woke up so strong this morning, like anything is possible.   It’s a new and unique feeling; one which comes from survival.   Doing the one thing you didn’t think you could do and surviving doing it.   Now I have a lot of choices, first of them finding some gainful employment and charting a life for myself.   I still want to do it on my terms so not quite ready to do the conventional corporate thing yet.   I have faith in God and the universe that the answer is out there somewhere and hopefully with the holidays almost upon us I will sell enough of my work to keep my head above water while I wait for my marriage to end. Peter and I have finally reached the peaceful part of our marriage ending, the part where the decisions have been made and we are just waiting for it to be over.   It’s brought a kind of peacefulness to the process.   He’s moving on, I’m moving on.   We’re evolving.   I do hope for our son’s sake that we can somehow...

This is my latest addition to my Etsy shop.  This one of a kind purse is hand embroidered and hand beaded  and has a lovely hand-beaded handle. It is lovely and elegant and can be used for either the simplest of nights out or the most fancy of evenings.  You can find it here.  http://www.etsy.com/listing/107907019/hand-embroidered-silk-flower-bag?utm_source=OpenGraph&utm_medium=PageTools&utm_campaign=Share&fb_ref=like_button&fb_source=other_oneline

Oddly enough that popped up on my email this morning while I was loading Autumn Tree, which is hand embroidery framed in a 3 ½ x 4 ½ in antique frame available through the blog for $65.00.   It reminded me that autumn trees are almost upon us and yes my dreams are taking too long. My dreams are not really taking too long but it is easy to convince yourself that everyone deserves to be an overnight(or several nights) success.   But life has a way of happening to us if we don’t take charge of our own dreams and our own life, we can sometimes get caught in the mud of other people’s expectations for us and yes we disappoint them when we are not overnight successes or on top of things we should be on top of. I am a free spirited artist who never really held to schedules very well.   I have a great capacity to work hard but time management skills are not my forte, therefore I need a lot of inspiration and motivation to do just about anything, including embroider...

This is my latest piece, another tree that has a beautiful little antique frame waiting for it.   It’s going to be a fall tree with fall approaching.   This year has just flown by at such a pace it’s amazing that yet another season has passed and a new one is approaching much too quickly.   I am an artist, it is who I am today and who I was at the beginning of the year but it is nice to finally be free enough both physically and mentally to just throw myself into my work and the upcoming holiday season.   Yes the upcoming holiday season when the leaves will fall off the trees and snow will fall (perhaps, last year it didn’t).    I think sometimes when we are artists we expect that life will be perfect and we will figure out the meaning of life and how to pay for it.   Sometimes the gray or even black zones take over and we find ourselves swimming upstream against a strong current without even the oar of an embroidery needle handy.   That’...

I picked this piece to illustrate my point as it is filled with french knots, lovely time consuming, meditative french knots, which can only be done the old fashioned way, one french knot at a time. We are in an exciting time of technological breakthroughs and we are able to listen to music on our phones, see art on our computers, read books on our Kindles and reach out and touch people through YouTube.   But yet I can’t help thinking that we have lost something very important with all these technological breakthroughs.   We’ve lost the simplicity of watching Elvis Presley on Ed Sullivan from the waist up, we’ve lost the feeling of going to a museum and seeing a real Picasso, and we’ve lost the ability to value the real thing. Our schools are getting rid of art programs left and right, books and book stores have moved on to the more digital age and   I would imagine the school trips to the Metropolitan Opera are now a thing of the past too.   It seems perf...

A Simple Man is a song by Lynard Skynard.   It’s one of my favorites and reflects the outlook I have on life today.   All anyone wants in life is to be accepted and driven by what they love.   I love hand embroidering, crocheting and spinning a yarn.   That is what I wake up every morning hoping to somehow reflect out into the world. I am truly starting over.   There is no backward motion anymore.   The time has come to put one foot in front of the other, put the pedal to the metal and try to follow my dream wherever it may lead me.   The last week has been incredible.   I have so many more possibilities at the end of the week than I had in the desperation of having to find a place to live by yesterday (or seven yesterdays).   I have a great roommate/landlord named Richard, a man who has followed his dreams through several incarnations and is about to embark on another one.   I have a son who is learning how to live with me a lit...

It's another lovely morning up here in Whitehall!  It's so peaceful here I can really feel myself starting to emerge from the doldrums by the minute.  This is the latest piece I am working on.  It is a pleasure to just work up here, I am going to make this short and sweet and then get back to creativity and the Ticonderoga Walmart. Richard has told me it is a lovely ride and closer than Saratoga.  Every time I venture out from Whitehall I am floored by the beauty and tranquility of this beautiful place I am now calling home.  The beauty of the mountains, the centering nature of Whitehall and the idea that you can drive a 1/2 hour in every direction and find beauty and peace is just amazing.  There are a lot of business opportunities for anyone so inclined, I myself am trying to decide whether I am so inclined.  Part of me says yes in a heartbeat and the other side says as much as I love it here will I still love it months from now. Time will tell...

This Heart Butterfly will be available at the Valley Artisans Market Seconds and Pottery Sale this weekend.  Every artist has work available at a reduced price and Kathleen the wonderful member in charge of this event has really outdone herself so please come by and shop!  Many of the artists will be in and out over the weekend so please come and meet us too! The sun is shining on the water, I made some great eggs, and I’ve been embroidering for hours.   What could be more beautiful?   I don’t have any pictures to share my phone is upstairs and I am in the galley room.   It looks like a galley, I’ll have to ask if that was the intention or not.    The house is built on the water which I found fascinating really.   I find everything about this place fascinating.   One of the cats disappeared for hours only to be found somehow under a bench next to the kitchen. It was wild and woolly but all’s well that ends well. I took a ride to C...

Sometimes we end up in places and we have no godly explanation how we ended up there.  That is sort of where I am at the moment.  I am exactly where I need to be at this moment and I have no Godly explanation of how I ended up here.  A week ago I was still getting over the shell shock of being sent out into the cold hard world before I deemed I was ready.  I personally thought I needed at least a couple more days of rest and relaxation in the behavioral unit before attempting to live again in the real world again. Hence the powers that be and my insurance company decided not quite.  So I started the week of hotel, which was ultra cool having a jacuzzi and a really cool bathtub to soak in.  And somehow in desperation and a realization that I couldn't live at home(I think I can visit and probably be a friend to the experience but I can't live in my old home) I answered a listing on Craig'slist and ended up overlooking some water, eating ganache on my bi...

Good day sunshines!  Hope everyone who reads this is happy and chipper this morning.  I am happy and chipper.  I have somehow managed to live on planet earth for 53 years without growing up. Today is my 53rd birthday and have much to be thankful for.  First off my son, who made the last 21 years the bomb.  Secondly my family, they have been so wonderful in these past few months(and the rest of my life too, one of the best parts about crashing and burning is being embraced by the people who knew you when you were too young to crash and burn) and then there are the friends.  What can I say I'm blessed! I am still at a crossroads in my life, as lovely as Whitehall is it is not the destination of my dreams but it could be the destination of anybody with a dream.  There is so much freakin opportunity here it is teeming all over town, maybe teeming the wrong word to use but bursting out is more accurate. Everywhere you look there is a vacant building w...