Tangled Stitch

Sheep are simple animals that have symbolized  benevolence, honesty, nobility and peace. I think that sums up their place as my favorite animal to hand embroider.  The simple pleasure of dozens of French knots for those times when honesty and commerce meet.  They have always been my favorite thing to embroider and a favorite among my customers.  They are scattered in the mountains of Upstate New York in far lower numbers than their living counterparts. The holidays are a wee bit of a struggle for me as both of my parents died the first week of January a very long time ago.  I’m determined this year to be a bit different and sitting down to embroider some sheep with just a little background noise was just what my soul needed that day.  They are just so simple.  A little circle, a head and some black for the bottom of their legs.  But they give me hours of enjoyment as we all know French knots are the stitch that makes the tangled stitch heart go pi...

What is perfection anyway?  This hand embroidered vintage motorcycle kind of encapsulates my understanding of the word.  It’s a metaphor for how one careless word or hundreds of them can slowly chip away at ones self esteem until there is nothing left but rebuilding the pieces.  I made this motorcycle several years ago, I was still married then.  I looked at a picture of a vintage motorcycle and tried to embroider it meticulously bit by bit as my embroidery needle is a better illustrator than a pen.  It took me weeks and I was oh so proud of it.  My then husband took one look at it and said it was awful as the tires weren’t round enough.   He was probably right but I was shattered nonetheless.  It was during my get out of my box phase.  His one remark which by the way wasn’t meant to hurt me ,just an observation, made this art piece a devastating  failure.  It’s probably why I still have it today. Perfection is an illusion.  It...