- It's National Embroidery Month
and I highly recommend if you haven't tried it before,
to pick up a needle and thread
and to teach yourself embroidery.
Just the act of sewing is so meditative and it's so present,
that even if you make something that just ends up
in the bottom of the shoebox,
the time that you spent making it is going to be valuable.
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The title crafter gives you just infinite freedom to make.
Whether it's knitting, crocheting, decoupage,
the work can just be the process of making.
And I think it's in that process as a crafter
or as a creative, that we really learn the most
and we can be the most self reflective.
I remember my very, very first embroidery piece.
It was a little rabbit that was gently embroidered
onto a scrap piece of felt.
And I thought I had invented embroidery.
I was calling it thread sketching.
Very embarrassing when I found out that I didn't make it up.
I have this portrait that I did, which was of Petit Noir,
was from a photograph we took
that was in "Rolling Stone" magazine.
My technique is completely different now.
It's really cool to see as well
because not only have I changed, but also looking back
and seeing the value in that kind of technique
and going like, actually, I can use these textures again
and it's how I used to sew.
And this piece is so embarrassing, but also so special.
It was my first portrait ever.
And it's of my little sister.
So yeah, these are the pieces from my past
that I keep to remind me about all the things
that kind of keep you humble and excited for the future.
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I think the best piece of advice
that I could have gotten when I started
was to be better at not using my phone.
I feel like in the past three years,
I've lost so many hours to scrolling
and there's a certain superpower that you have
when you have a strong attention span
and you're able to focus and just be inside your life.
That's the skill that needs to be nurtured
and something that I'm making a conscious effort
to nurture now.
But I really wish I'd been told this 3, 4, 10 years ago.
Anything that you do outside of your main focus
is going to inadvertently inform what you do.
And I always find that inspiration
is kind of like this flash,
it's just like moment of energy that comes
when you see a new material, you see a color,
you watch a movie and you just become like, inundated
with this energetic excitement to create.
But I always find that that's almost sporadic
and it's something that can't be controlled.
What really, really is such an important quality
to nurture is motivation.
One question I wish I was asked more
is what is your relationship
with social media and Instagram?
I think that there is such a facade that gets put across
with your numbers and your likes and your followers
and what you choose to post
and what you don't choose to post.
Social media has become the foundation
of our business models as creatives.
And it's a relationship.
A relationship with social media
is something that needs to be nurtured,
but also needs strong boundaries.
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In my opinion, the future of embroidery
is a lot more embraced than the art world.
Embroidery goes through ebbs and flows
and it always has throughout history.
It's been around since the beginning of time.
It was one of the most highly paid professions
in the 18th century.
Then it was a cottage craft.
And now, it's just getting this massive resurgence.
I think that the future of it is kind of infinite.
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The only way I feel like the pandemic
changed my relationship with my craft
is it gave me a deep gratitude for it.
I felt like my work was my company, it was my home.
I happened to be surrounded by these materials that I loved
and it was the one place that I could feel
that I had some form of control.
To anybody who's struggling
to get back to arts and creative projects,
I just recommend starting small.
Find a little notebook that you really like,
maybe buy one so that it's special,
like a beautiful hard cover,
and just draw something, just something small,
and put it away.
We put so much pressure on ourselves to be productive
and then to share and be productive and to share
and always looking for validation.
So everything we create, we have this expectation
that we need to put out into the world.
And I think if we get back to the essence of why we create
and just make something for yourself,
that really can help reignite
that little bit of fire that you had before.
And hopefully, you know, that fire grows.
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Portraiture is incredibly intimidating
because you want to capture emotion,
but you also want to capture likeness.
There are moments in portraiture embroidery,
where there is such particular details
that need to be captured,
specifically with the eyes and the mouth,
because a highlight in the wrong place
is a completely different expression.
A shadow in the wrong place is a frown.
So I think that there is slightly intimidating moments
when it comes to portraiture embroidery,
but once you've got certain skills
and understanding around these elements,
you will kind of get over those hurdles
and definitely find portraiture less intimidating.
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Knowing how to finish your work is really important.
For you to assign value onto something
that has taken you hours, days, months,
you have to be framing it properly
and framing it in a way that's going to last forever.
And so that it can be displayed properly
and loved for a long time.
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Thank you for watching.
In my new class, we'll learn abstract embroidery, collage,
new materials, seamless patches and how to make sure
that you frame and display your work archivally.
Click the link below so we can get started.