Posts

Back to the Challenges

Image
 At the beginning of the year, I came up with a series of challenges, all related to the fact that I was turning 52 this year and there are 52 weeks in a year. 52 for 52. I intended to create 52 things (art/crafts), read 52 books (that's actually my usual goal number each year, so not exactly out of the ordinary), take 52 photos of ordinary beauty, blog 52 times, play 52 board games, listen to 52 albums, watch 52 movies, and...um, I think that's it? No, that's not it. I also wanted to write 52,000 words of fiction by the end of the year. I have fallen behind on almost all of them. I have changed my internal rules about many of them. But, today I am determined to get back on track. There are 12 days left in June and when June is over, the year is halfway done. So, my plan is to use these 12 days to catch up on everything . Then I will get back to a more manageable weekly schedule for these things. Except, actually, the writing. It was a really low bar I was giving myself the...
Post a Comment
Read more

"Currents"

Image
  Okay! Now it's time to tell this one's story. I feel like I'm going to struggle because I'm not sure this one has as much of a story as the previous one. I don't want to go into the thinking behind every single minute decision I make on each piece, but I do want to hit the important bits.  So, I started off with the blue ribbon-wrapped hoop. A while back I went through all of my embroidery projects that weren't either on my wall or in my shop and took a bunch of embroidery art out of the hoop frames they had been in. The embroidery itself either went into a pile which I will use to create... something (I'm thinking some kind of book so that I can look back at my embroidery journey) or, (not really that) sadly, to the trash. So I ended up with a lot of hoops available for re-use. Some of them had ribbon-wrapping, some didn't. This one did and the ribbon's color went really well with some green and blue batik fabric I had recently bought.  The batik ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Observer

Image
 For a long time I have wanted to use this space to tell the stories behind each of my art pieces. But there wasn't much art making going on to tell the story of due to most of my time being taken up with my return to college. I have finished that now, earned my bachelor's degree, and my art-making time has increased. I have even completed a few pieces of embroidery hoop art and so I will now tell the story of this hoop, which I am calling, "The Observer." That there is me, with my art, including my face so you can see the artist behind the art, gathering up all my courage to do so because it makes me uncomfortable to put my face on the internet. Here is a better picture of the art itself. I started stitching this piece in October of 2025. The idea was that I wanted to recreate a previous digital artwork of mine in embroidery. I thought this particular piece would give me a good opportunity to practice layering several background fabrics at once. I've previously m...
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
 I am currently dragging myself across the finish line where my college education is concerned. I am in the last couple of weeks of the last session of the last semester of my journey. On May 11th, I will have graduated officially and I will finally have a bachelor's degree. Will I carry on and get a higher level of education? I don't know. All I know right now is I'm a little bit over it. Ready to be done. As such, my creative output has increased a bit in anticipation. I finished the cloudburst hoop I showed in my last post and now I am working on finishing a more involved hoop (I showed what I had done of it as well on the post before the previous one). I'm excited about diving back into things and devoting more of my time to my creativity.  I know I haven't been posting weekly even though I said (somewhere) that I was going to. I know I haven't kept up with the challenges that I was so excited about at the beginning of the year. I struggle with this so much ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Finished Cloudburst Hoop

Image
 I can't believe I actually have something finished to show off here. It feels good to have a completed art piece and it feels like it's been ages since I managed this. This is a pink cloudburst hoop, bigger than what I usually do for these because I was using a hoop that had previously been used for something else. At some point last year, I went through all my work and did a big declutter, keeping what I could reuse. So, the hoop itself got new life and although this hoop is nothing new for me, artistically speaking, I like how it turned out. Bright pinks make me happy. And as a step back into creating more regularly, I think it's a good one. Here, as well, is my weekly Ordinary Beauty photo. Butterfly Latte
Post a Comment
Read more
Image
 I have been way too in my head about my creativity lately. Worrying about how much I'm not making, how much I'm not posting, how I'm losing steam on some of my projects and not keeping up with them, berating myself for feeling like I don't have time when I clearly have time if I'm doomscrolling, etc., etc., etc., and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, my creativity just keeps trying to poke her head in to say, "It was only ever supposed to be fun. It was only ever supposed to be playing." This is a thing I know, but sometimes completely unrelated life stuff can cause my brain to spiral about my creativity, which is supposed to be a place of refuge, a place of calm. So, I was sitting at my desk looking at some long neglected embroidery projects and decided to actually listen to that little voice and just... picked one up and did some work on it. And that felt like a nice, deep, centering breath. So, that's what I'll show you today. Me, tentatively find...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pulling Inward

Image
 Hello, It is Tuesday. Which is two days later than Sunday, which is two days later than the day that I had established as my "blogging day" for each week. I always aim to not be too rigid with the rules I make for myself when I create goals or challenges. Because I know that sometimes the enthusiasm I had at the beginning of something isn't necessarily always sustainable. I like to give myself permission to quit a thing when it's not bringing me joy anymore and I don't like to muddy that up with feelings of shame or guilt. Which is not to say those feelings are completely absent in these situations--I'm just trying not to let them become dominant. Also, I know that giving up entirely on a challenge when I stumble is counterproductive when I could just pick myself off, dust myself off, and keep going. It takes a little bit of introspection to know whether letting go or carrying on is the thing. That's kind of where I'm at, which is probably not unusual...
Post a Comment
Read more