Slow Stitch History

While I was reading Claire Wellesley-Smith's new book Resilient Stitch ~ Wellbeing and Connection in Textile Art I took a look around my home office at my little collection of slow-stitched art pieces that she inspired me to make. This one is the very first I made; I embroidered a piece of hand-dyed recycled silk on muslin to depict a setting from one of my stories. Scared the crap out of me to make it, too.

This piece I made from memory; it shows a life-changing moment I had atop a mountain in Tennessee. It's pretty close to what I actually saw that day.

I made this piece from a piece of old, pilled flannel that reminded me of my grandmother's favorite robe. The tree is one that grows in my backyard. Trees are often a theme in my work, I guess because of one of my favorite e.e. cummings's lines: time is a tree (this life one leaf).

My word embroidery isn't that great, but I wanted to express how I feel about fall -- the apprehension over the impending holidays, the depression from watching things turn brown, and how much I wish I could skip October, November and December and just go right to January.

I followed up the fall piece with one about something I do like during winter: the colder temperatures, and the occasional frosts we have here.

A piece I cobbled together while feeling particularly isolated, and trying to express that through my stitching.

One of my stronger pieces; I was feeling very determined and focused after making some very difficult decisions.

My two largest art quilts, each made during a summer of my life when I gave myself permission to play (something that's still hard for me) instead of make useful things to give to other people (my creative default.)

I'm working on a slow-stitched project now, so I continue to be inspired by Claire. It may be the only form of quilting I'm entirely comfortable with now, or maybe it just gives me permission to be myself. Either way, I doubt I'll give it up anytime soon.

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Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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