If you’ve been here long enough, you’ll know that I have picked up the hobby of embroidery. I talked about my journey so far in one of my first blog posts. If you liked that article, you might have wanted an update. You’ve probably read my other writing and have seen I’ve been busy. I do, however, have an update for everyone in my journey. That is what I will show you today.
If you’ve been following my blog, you know I went to NOLA for Mardi Gras. During that time, I wasn’t able to stitch since I was having a lot of fun. But when I got back from NOLA, I was on spring break, where I was excited to pick up my current project.
However, that didn’t fully go as planned. I succumbed to the illness that everyone has fallen ill with. It was so bad that I couldn’t talk for 3 days, and I didn’t even want to get out of bed. I did start to feel better at the end of spring break and that is when I finally picked up my flower project.
Most of the photo updates I’m about to give you might not seem that interesting, but they have taken me a lot of time because there is so much green that needs to be done. For this piece, I wanted to finish off the light green stitching. I used a mix of stem stitches and satin stitches. I will admit I’ve been sticking with doing those because the rest of the stitches that I have to learn are intimidating me.
If you remember my first post, you know I watch TV well, I stitch, and this has been no different. If I remember correctly, I finished Bridgerton while I stitched this. Side note, I’m so excited for season 5 of Bridgerton, I love Francesca.
In this update, you might not see much progress as some of the other photos. I didn’t do too much because I was figuring out where to go since I had finished that light green. I’d ended up deciding to continue with the dark green spots since there weren’t too many of them to fill in. I started with the extra bit of floss I had and used that until it ran out. I mainly did satin stitches, lazy daisy stitches, and a satin stitch.
For my TV show, I think I was still watching Bridgerton, but I can’t remember if I’m being honest, this was in February.
In this photo, you can really see where I added new stitches. I just kept on rolling with the dark green in the same stitches that I was using in the above photo.
I’m going to be honest with you, this photo was the last time so far that I’ve picked up that specific embroidery project. I got extremely distracted with school work and midterms, so I didn’t have the motivation to continue working on this project. But don’t worry, I did still work on another project.
I’m going to assume that not everyone reading this post has read the book “Othello” by Shakespeare. If you haven’t read it, a big plot in the book is that Desdemona (Othello’s wife) loses a handkerchief that Othello gave to her. This handkerchief was from Othello’s mom, and it makes him go crazy.
You’re probably wondering, Brooke, what does this have to do with embroidery? Well, on that handkerchief were embroidered strawberries.
On March 13th, I volunteered for a professional development hosted by the exile studies program at FIU. We discussed Shakespeare and Exile and how teachers can get students interested in or relating to Shakespeare. One of the lessons at this professional development was Othello. A teacher from Texas has her kids read up to act 3 of Othello, then they stop, and they learn to embroider, and they make their own version of Othello’s handkerchief. The teacher has everyone at the professional development learn the back stitch, satin stitch, and the lazy daisy stitch. Then we came up with designs for our ancestral handkerchief.
I don’t have a photo from when I first started this project, but I can describe why I chose to do the strawberries you will see in the next photo. My dad grew up on a farm in Iowa, and when he was a kid, his grandparents grew strawberries on the farm. He would always tell stories of him picking the strawberries right off the vine and eating them right there in the field. I took that as my inspiration. Also, because I wanted to stay close to the Othello theme. This is where I learned to draw my own patterns, and I also worked on a new kind of material I hadn’t worked on before. I don’t remember the name of the material, though. I only finished part of the vine in the hour I had to stitch.
Once the professional development was done, I didn’t touch the handkerchief again until late March, early April. I was busy, what can I say? I also went to New York.
The next time I picked up this piece, I knew I had a lot to work on. I primarily used stem stitches, satin stitches, and French knots. You can probably tell this isn’t as defined as when I have a pattern. The strawberries aren’t as even, or the seeds are weirdly spaced. I think all my mistakes gave this piece character and helped me reinforce my belief that my skills are good enough to make my own patterns.
I did pick this piece back up because for my Shakespeare class, I had to watch a movie of Macbeth, and there isn’t a better time to embroider, in my opinion.
This is where I really felt myself getting better and improving within my embroidery. I was so close, and I probably could have finished that night, but stitching for so many nights in a row makes my hand cramp up, and you need to listen to your body when it tells you to stop. So I put off finishing this piece for another night, but it was worth it.
Here is my finished piece. I want to hem the edges to make it into a real handkerchief, but learning how to hem by hand is a big task. I’m really proud of this project. It has given me the confidence I need to get the materials to start making that sweatshirt for my sister that I mentioned in my last post. I can’t wait to continue on this journey, and I hope everyone is here for the ride.