“Vessel” – Embroidery floss, 11” x 17”, 2016

I wanted to post a little bit about some of my past projects, so I wanted to start with this one. When I have these projects, I carry them around with me for months to work on them whenever I have time. This shell has taken many trips to coffee shops (notice some of the coffee stains), around with me on errands, and even traveled with me to Oklahoma for my cousin’s wedding. I purposefully choose projects that can go wherever I go since they take so long to finish, and I get cabin fever if I am stuck at my kitchen table. I did decide it was time to invest in a craft lamp to give me better light though, so that helped to make the process easier and I think will help my future projects be more successful as well. I should have done that years ago!

This was also one of the few times that I have gone back and used a medium for a second time (other than something traditional like paint). I think I have finally started to get my groove – I figured out that my life purpose is to glue things to boards. There is a freedom and confidence that comes with knowing this, and I’m really excited about some of the ideas that I have stewing. I loved my first embroidery floss picture of the waterfall, but I really expanded on the technique with this shell. I can even see how I was learning more and more about what worked and what didn’t on this picture – hopefully it’s not too obvious!

One of my favorite aspects of these pieces that I have made over the last few years is that they are like a journal; I can see my moods, experiences, and situations expressed over time as I moved through the creation of the image. This took me 4 months to complete – when I started this I was not in a good place. My work life was really draining and emotionally exhausting, and it took a lot out of me to get up every day and do what I needed to do. Because of this, there were periods of time where I wouldn’t make any progress because I was stumped on where the next string should go and didn’t want to figure it out. But then I started to get out of my slump, any my brain was working differently. The decisions I would make and flow I would create was changed as I changed. I love making these little decisions piece by piece that add up to the whole – but just don’t ask me to decide what to have for dinner, that is too hard.