"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!

 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 because I create imaginary situations in my head in which people are disappointed in me, rolling their eyes at my lack of follow-through. So my inclination is to come to this space with apologies and explanations, and I know that's neither necessary or helpful. I may or may not complete the challenges I set out for myself. My creativity will continue to exist in its own ebbs and flows (as I have remarked upon before) and absolutely nothing important (outside of myself) hinges upon it. Anyone who would look upon such things with judgement is not someone whose opinion would carry much weight with me anyway. So, why is it so hard to start strong, falter, and then show up again without apologizing for it? I do not know, but I am working on it.

Anyway, I'm going to share some of my photos over the past month or so with you and hopefully next time I come back to this space I will have a finished piece of hoop art to share. I've decided to switch up my rules on my challenges so that I end up with 52 [whatevers] by the end of the year because it will free me up from needing them to be completed in each particular week.

Cactus Bloom-to-be

Prickly Pears

Once Grand

Electric

Drive

Libe

A Finished Cloudburst Hoop

 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

 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 finding my way back to where I want to be; makin' stuff. Of course, on Monday my last class for my degree starts up and I will have seven weeks of stressing out about Spanish-speaking Zoom calls, but hopefully I will be able to keep the angst away from my creative brain space.

Chain Stitch Sun

And, here are a couple of Ordinary Beauty photos from the past two weeks.

Smells Like Grape Soda

Italia

Pulling Inward

 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 (for me) at this time of year because at this point I kind of know myself well enough to know my patterns. January means feeling excited and enthusiastic and revved up about that "fresh slate" feeling. It means coming up with all kinds of projects and challenges and goals and feeling like there's no way I'm not going to carry through with every single one of them. March, on the other hand, means feeling a bit burnt out, a bit too beholden to what feels like obligations I've put on myself. Again, I'm trying not to dwell in a place of "why am I like this?" because, well, I am like this and it hurts no one, so... But, I do think March is a time of reevaluation when it comes to considering what I want to devote time and energy to, a time of shedding what isn't working and renewing energy on what is.

I am well aware that a lot of the feeling of burnout is coming from school. There's something in my personality that has a really hard time with focusing on more than one capital-T Thing at a time. And I want to finish up, I want to get that degree, so naturally school is prioritized right now. Sometimes even when I'm not actively working on an assignment, or watching a lecture, or reading learning materials, it's still filling up my brain--like a giant blob of something labeled "unfinished business." 

But--right now, at this very moment, I have just finished recording a fake podcast, which was the final assignment for my Young Adult Literature class, which means the only thing I have left to do for this session is a final exam paper for my Science Fiction Literature class, which is due tonight. After that I'll have a week and a half to rest and then I'll have to dive into 7 weeks of intermediate Spanish, and after that I will be finished! Graduated! So, I'm starting to feel this sense of near-completion. The end is in sight, light at the end of the tunnel, and so on and so forth. 

And the feeling of being almost done is triggering a feeling of pulling inward, thinking about my creativity, thinking about what I want to focus my energy on when I get to the point where I don't have the blob of "unfinished business" sitting in my brain taking up space. I know I'm late with my weekly blogging, but this is not a thing I want to let go. I know I've been missing weeks of finishing up weekly creations, but that is also not a thing I want to let go. I know I will let go of some of my little challenges, most likely ones I haven't shared here at all, but in the meantime, just know that I do intend to catch up on the most important ones. 

In the meantime, here is my ordinary beauty photo from week 8 of 2026:

Morning

No runner-up this time. Just some sunlight and shadow that caught my eye.

Not Feeling It

 I'm not sure where my mind's at right now, but I'm trying to show up for this little blogging challenge I've created for myself anyway. Two days later than normal again, but I never make my own rules hard and fast, so I'm letting that part go. Again. I have a bunch of potential topics for these blog posts in my notes app on my phone, but right now nothing feels appropriate and nothing is calling out to me. I feel like this post is going to be another that's got a phoning-it-in vibe. Oh well.

I think part of the problem at this moment is a frustration with schoolwork taking up so much of my brain space, energy, and time. I don't always feel that way, but right now I do. I've got stuff due tonight and even if the actual work of it is only going to take an hour or two, it still crowds everything else out of my brain. 

To top it off, I have nothing to show for my weekly creation. I do have a photo to share for Ordinary Beauty.

Goose + Tree

I just really love the way the goose, the tree, the water, and the reeds in the background look together and the warm yellowish colors. Runner up:

Leaf Litter in the Water