Finished Object and How Goes the Catching Up

 I posted this one the other day thinking I was finished, or possibly that it just needed a couple small things added and to shift the hoop frame because the top was off center. So I shifted and added and it turned out I actually needed to add quite a bit more. But it's done now and I'm calling it Orange Crush.

I'm currently stitching two additional cloudburst hoops that were a custom order of two designs I had previously made and then sold. This custom order made me think I could probably make a custom listing for this size of cloudburst hoop, made-to-order style, in which one can order from a variety of designs I have previously made. So I'm working on getting that together, but first I need to make sure I have the materials. Then I need to decide which designs to offer. I do not normally offer commissions or customs, because it stresses me out. But remaking something tried and true is different and something I think I can enjoy.

As for my catching up with my challenges, I am at the point where I need to catch up with my catching up. Oh, well. No matter what happens at least I have made progress. And I do think I will get to where I want to be by the end of the year.

Broken Records

 With an order that I took today, a custom request for two cloudburst pieces that are essentially re-making two cloudbursts I made in the past that sold, I have officially surpassed my highest year's revenue since I opened my Etsy shop. I won't mention what that amount is because my business is still really at the hobby level, but I just wanted to make note of it because having gotten to that point when the year's still not quite to the halfway mark feels really good. 

In other news, yesterday Pat, one of our kids, and I went out to the Desert National Wildlife Refuge for some nature therapy. It was over 100 degrees, but there was shade (in places) and a breeze so the heat didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. There was a lot to see and hear (Merlin told me there was a Blue Grosbeak! (birds became interesting to us when we turned 50, that's just how it goes)) and I took the time to really notice the calm, peace, and happiness in my body that was purely the result of being in nature. Sometimes I think I forget how profound that feeling is and it surprises me when it washes over me again.

 

Packaging Personal Touches

 I've sent out a handful of orders in boxes that I upcycled by adding posca pen decorations to appropriate sized boxes I had received myself in the mail. I loved doing that and felt like I was adding a fun element for the person who had ordered my art. Not only did it give me a chance to reuse something that was essentially garbage, but it added something personal to the experience of buying some of my art.

Unfortunately I don't get appropriate-sized boxes that often. My usual go-to for sending out a piece of embroidery hoop art is a bubble envelope. But I want to keep my whimsy level sustained for all of my packages, not just some. So, I decided to pre-decorate a couple of them yesterday and today. The rainbow is cute, but basic. The butterfly, though--! I'm enamored with how that turned out. 

I'm going to work on creating a small stock of decorated packaging, so I have it ready for any and all sales. 

Games, Movies, Music

 I wanted to talk about some of my other 52 for 52s. These are the ones I didn't talk about in any previous blog posts because I was trying to keep the blog focused on art and creativity. But, a) I don't really want to limit myself like that anymore and b) watching movies, listening to music, and playing games is actually part of the creative process. It's part of the input phase. The things we experience go in and the creativity comes out. A creative person takes inspiration from all kinds of places and I don't want to discount that part of the process.

So, games. We have a lot of board games. This picture shows only some of them. Another couple of shelves were cut out of the picture. This picture actually kind of sucks, but I don't like to make a blog post without a photo, so...

We actually used to have more, but last year we did a challenge in which we played all of our games in alphabetical order (one game night per week, playing two each time--you can do the math) and we culled some of the ones we didn't like very much. We did that because we were feeling like we never got any use out of the games we had. We bought them, played them once, and then let them sit on the shelf gathering dust. And then when we did pull one out we'd say, okay now, how do you play this again? And we'd have to relearn it all over. (I mean for the more complicated ones--we do know how to play Uno.)

I was still feeling like I needed some structure to make sure that we made use of our game collection so I included it in my 52 for 52 challenge. One game played per week. Only, you know, I'm way behind. I'll get caught up by the end of June. Yesterday we played Uno and Scrabble. Today we played Tsuro, and in a few minutes we will play Kingdomino and Zombie Dice. When I say we, by the way, I mostly mean me and Pat (the husband), but occasionally our youngest joins in. 

Movies! I used to watch movies a lot more often. I have been feeling for a long time that I have let that particular pleasure of mine slip away. Maybe it's a problem of loss of focus due to too much social media. Maybe it's something else, I don't know. But when I was in classes at ASU finishing up my degree recently, I had more than one class that required me to watch some films and they kind of rekindled something in me. I have realized that I need to make time for watching movies. Time to appreciate the storytelling, the acting, the visuals. It can feel so good to just sit there after a good movie and let it settle in your brain. Again, I'm behind but working on catching up. Currently we have Apple TV (I like to rotate through streaming services) so I am trying to find films available there for these final days of June. So far, Pat and I have watched Outcome and On the Rocks. The first was okay, the second was better. To me, anyway. Pat thought On the Rocks was painfully boring.

And then there's music. We pay for a Spotify family account, but I feel like I don't listen to it often enough. Again, this feels like a thing that I used to enjoy more but that has inexplicably become something that I do less and less. It might have been a situation in which I listened to less and less over the years because it bothered the kids and the kids were who I was spending almost 100% of my time with for so long. But they've gotten older and I have more time to myself and listening to music isn't going to bother anyone, so I want to make it more of a habit. I'm trying to listen to both new-to-me music as well as tried and true stuff. I'm using the alphabet as a guide and listening to at least one album per week, with the first 26 weeks being albums whose title start with A, then B, then C, and so on, and the second 26 weeks I will listen to albums by artists whose names start with Z, then Y, then X, and so on. This is one 52 for 52 that I'm not behind on. I might list them all at the end of the year here, just for... I don't know, for the sake of something to post, I guess.

Back to the Challenges

 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 there. 1,000 words a week is less than 150 words a day. For this one, to catch up, I'd rather just increase my word count goal for each day for the rest of the year. I subtracted the small amount of words I've already written from 52K, divided it by the number of days left in the year and came up with 245 words a day. I might/probably will write more about the writing stuff here later, but for now that's enough about that.

I've written about some but not all of these categories because I wanted to keep this blog focused on art and creativity, but I think I'm going to let go of those parameters and just let it be whatever it wants to be. Since I am going to need to write a blog post every day for the next twelve days in order to catch up to where I want to be on the blogging part of the challenge, I'll probably talk more about some of those other things soon. Or not. Who knows?

Anyway, I finished this hoop today.

Except for the part where I need to shift the fabric's position so the hoop hardware is actually on the top. Also, looking at it right now, I feel like I might want to add another orange bead in there. And one more sequin rain drop? Hm, maybe I'm not quite as done as I thought I was. Let's just say I mostly finished it.

I chose orange batik fabric for this because I was using one of my already wrapped hoops that I was recycling from a previous project. (I love glitter ribbon and need to get some more.) I started laying down tapestry wool French knots, ran out of what I was using, got some more, and only then realized that I was mixing blanc and ecru (white and a little less white). It was very subtle, but I could tell the difference in the colors when I looked at them in the light. I decided to lean into it and just make the whole cloud an even-ish mix of ecru and blanc and I think it turned out nice, though you can't even really tell from the photo. When looked at in the light, it reminds me of buttered popcorn. 

I know I've probably said it before, but orange isn't really at the top of the list in terms of colors I like to work with. But I feel like I've reached for it often enough lately that I ought to rank it somewhat higher. Orange can be really vibrant and lovely and I'm coming around to appreciating it more and more. Also, looking at this is making me think I could make a rainbow set of cloudburst hoops, maybe. Maybe. 

"Currents"

 

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 print was so pretty that I wanted to make sure to not fully cover it up with my designs and to just use it as a jumping off point for my stitching and line choices. 

I braided a length of tapestry wool in blue and aqua and messed around with the placement before stitching it down to the surface. 

After that there was a long period in which I didn't take any process photos, so no illustrations, sorry. In adding the line of tapestry wool and the stitched lines that followed I was attempting to follow the curves of the batik print as they already existed. I have a thing for swirls and whorls and spirals, so it was really pleasing to me to build upon the print. The center of the spiral on the fabric has a white spot, almost as if it is shining and that gave me the idea to place a nice, shiny, medium-sized, clear glass bead in that spot. 

As I continued to add elements, it occurred to me that the piece was reminding me of moving water. Specifically, it reminded me of the little pockets of life you can find in a stream or creek where the flow of water is slowed down into a little pool. I decided I wanted to call it something reminiscent of that and ended up with "Currents."

These little pockets are typically teeming with life and activity; tiny fish, dragonflies and other bugs, reflections and shiny pebbles. I wanted my piece to bring that to mind. I continued adding bits and pieces here and there, lines and swirls, beads and chain stitch sections, and a smattering of various types of shiny thread and sequins so that the piece would catch the light in places in the same way that the flowing water of a creek will catch the sunlight and toss it back toward your eye.

Sometimes it's really hard to know when a piece is done-done and this one, I think, is somewhat more minimalistic than other abstract pieces I have done. But it was very important to me to let the batik underneath shine through in all of its glory, as it was the thing that guided and inspired everything I did.

This piece took roughly 8 hours combined to stitch (I think, I'm actually pretty bad at keeping track). I'm super pleased with how this piece turned out. Green is not one of my go-to color choices, but this fabric was just calling to me. This piece will be listed in my shop by the end of the day. (6/9/26) 

The Observer

 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 made pieces with layered fabric, but usually it's only two layers and this one required six layers. I had to figure out how to get all the pieces to stay where I wanted them to stay and how to make sure that the resulting bulk didn't make it impossible to close the embroidery hoop. 

I basted the layers into place and then used a wonky cross stitch to fully sew them together. I don't do cross-stitch, but I liked the way the lines looked as a row of little x's. 

And that was just about where things stopped. I set the piece aside and didn't pick it up again until March when I finally decided to add the sun. Five months she waited for me!

After that I dove in and started working on the swirls whenever I had some time to stitch. I decided to use different stitches for the swirls of each section and started off with a chain stitch (peachy-orange on purple) and then tried out a running stitch with alternating colors (magenta and purple on orange). Still, I was very nervous to add the girl because I didn't want to mess it up. I liked the way she looked in the digital art so much and I was worried I wouldn't be able to replicate that with floss.

But, bit by bit, she came along.

It was at this point that I started to think of this as a self portrait of sorts. She doesn't necessarily look like me, but I identify strongly with the way she's watching but not participating. I suppose it could be seen as creepy, but I prefer to think of her as blending into the background and observing. It's taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I am not a joiner; in large groups I very much tend toward quiet observation. That's what this art represents to me: quiet observation. This is not a quality that is prized in our society. But, here there is no judgement around the fact that she blends into the background. She isn't unhappy to be there. She fits into her environment naturally. She observes and thinks. And if you are paying attention, you will notice her. Sometimes the insights she's gleaned during her observations will surprise you. She's worth seeking out.

After this it was just a matter of adding the rest of the swirls, which I did with three additional stiches (whipped back stich, stem, and split), and then the rays of the sun.

Once that was done I wanted to add some gold details with diamante thread. I wove gold into each ray of sunshine plus into each of the chain stitches that made up the main part of the sun. Then I added a line of gold to the tops of each mountain and the top of the observer's head, as if the setting sun were casting its last rays of light at the top of each curve. Golden hour.

And with that, the piece was complete! Another thing I want to start doing is keeping track of how many hours I spend on a particular piece, but alas, I didn't think to do so with this one. If I had to guess I'd say maybe... 11 hours total? Anyway, she's all backed with a signed piece of craft felt and she'll be available in my shop by the end of today (6/2/26). I hope you like her!