The Eyes Have It!

Hi All! I know it's been a while but life is still a little hectic over here. This is my latest piece. It's a hand embroidered eye hand surrounded by french knots. I have a new camera and I just love how it picks up the details of the embroidery. You can actually see the variations in colors(at least on my end anyway). I'm so happy that I have a new camera and that it takes better photos then the old one. It's kind of appropriate too that the first picture of my work with my new camera is an eye.

Whenever I think of eyes I think that they are a window of the world. When I was a little girl I once went to my grandmother's church and some lovely old woman said she could see the whole world in my eyes. I never quite forgot it. It's true you know , people can pretend to be happy or they can pretend to be mad but in the end the eyes always give it away. You can tell a sad person if they have sad eyes no matter how big the smile on their face. It's also hard to lie without your eyes giving you away. I need my eyes so much to do my embroidery and oddly enough I can see better while embroidering without my coke bottle bifocles then I can with them on.

I'm gonna stop now because I've been happily embroidering away for the Albany Shaker Craft Fair next weekend. Please stop by and say hi if you are in the neighborhood and I'll be back asap. Blessings to you and yours!

Mighty Sun

This blog entry is a wish and a share! I wish the sun would come out for a little more then a few hours. It's been awfully rainy up here in my neck of the woods. And this is one of my new purses. It is based on Mighty Sun the hand embroidery on watercolored muslin. However it is done with permanent markers and outlined in hand embroidery. I'm trying to see if my designs carry over to a less expensive market. I'm kind of torn by the whole thing as I don't really want to water down my hand embroidered framed pieces but I wonder if my designs will sell on a more consistent basis. Oh well any suggestions would be deeply appreciated and they did seem to get a lot of eye action at the riverfest. I don't think I commented earlier about the Riverfest. I had a wonderful time(until I worked myself into a panic after getting lost in Troy) but it wasn't really a buying crowd. They had bands, and food, and the weather held out for much of the day and I got to hang out with Cheryl all day but as I said the crowd wasn't a buying crowd. Better luck next time I suppose.

Blessings to you and yours as right now I'm going out to enjoy the sun(if it sticks around).

Brian's Graduation

Hi All! My beautiful son is a graduate! He graduated Thursday and I have never been so proud and joyful. He is a great kid(strike that, young adult). It was a beautiful day although a bit humid(luckily no rain) and the graduation was held at SPAC. There are two pictures, one of Brian before graduation and one with my husband Peter after the ceremony. We went out to dinner afterward with my son and my inlaws who came up from Long Island. We had a great meal and a wonderful time. Then we came back for cake and marveled at how quickly the last 18 years have come and gone. A joyful time was had by all.

Will be back tomorrow with some new pictures of my work and hopefully I can get back into the blogging swing of things now that my life has finally slowed down. See you soon and Blessings to all of you!

Just checking in!

Whoa! Almost feel like I have a horse I have to harness! So much is going on at the same time I've been very negligent about my blog. My son went to the prom, I have pictures but haven't downloaded them to the computer yet. He had a great time, his date looked lovely, he looked quite handsome. We set up his courses in college(or should I say I did a lot easier job then I made it look). His graduation is in two weeks(from today). He has a gold tassel for being on the honor roll most of his 4 year career. Very exciting stuff.

In my business very exciting and busymaking stuff too. Handful of Flowers was sold by Kathy at the Katbird Shop. I love to work with her. Lovely store, lovely lady and she sells my framed pieces(which makes me very, very happy). My friend Cheryl and I are doing the Troy River Festival in downtown Troy on June 20th. I'm so excited about that. It is very well advertised and in previous years was something I always wanted to do(but needed a fire lit under my well you know). So I have to work since Kathy has more of my work then I do and the new gallery Artcetera has the rest of the nice stuff. I always give the stores my nicest pieces but will probably have to hold off doing that until the summer and all these opportunities are finished. I'm trying something new to supplement my framed pieces so I'll let you know how it turns out. Using markers and paint on purses and eye glass cases so that I can highlight them with embroidery. I'm trying to be more artistic instead of crafty. We'll see!

I hope all my bloggy friends are fabulous. I'm gonna go take a quick look at all of their blogs and just want to give you a heads up so you have something fabulous to read and look at while I get my life in some sort of order. Miss you all, your inspiration, your lovelyness and creativity and the support. Blessings to you all. I'll be back for good after graduation if we don't meet before that!

From Chaos comes Peace

This is the piece I was speaking about a few weeks ago. It is hand embroidered on water colored muslin. The center of the piece is an embroidered tangle of threads and it flows out from there in a peaceful flowy way.

My life is still in the chaotic phase. My son was on the waiting list for the prom and he got his tickets yesterday for the prom which is Saturday. We went to get his tuxedo and thankfully it was an easy and quick process and his date is going for her dress today. We are also filling out his college courses and that has been a bit more of an ordeal.

As far as my work goes. My work was accepted into a new gallery that is opening in Troy and I was not accepted as a member of an artist coop which I applied to. I feel I may have muddied the water by submitting older work(which I am currently not doing)instead of concentrating on my framed hand embroidery. But whatever will be will be and I guess that was an opportunity not meant to be(at least for now). I guess just the idea that I am putting my work out there in the universe to be juried should give me comfort.

I hope your day is going well and you are happily stitching!

Just Catching Up

I have so many wonderful things going on but none of them are quite ready to share yet. My dream is to have a life as an artist that validates itself after no longer being a stay at home mom. To do the work and find the outlets and just work, be it big or small, embroidered or knit I want to stitch a life for myself now that my son is although not flying the coop physically is flying the coop for all intensive purposes. It started in September as I realized this was a year of last mommy moments and has reached a fever pitch since his 18th birthday and is rolling along picking up steam as we near graduation and college.

So finally I am taking baby steps and they seem to be leading me to my life after stay at home mommydom(yes I'll still be a mother but not quite in the same way). I've been putting my work out in my little corner of the world and it seems as if I will be able to keep working. So I've got a bunch of wonderful things to share which hopefully will finalize on different days so I don't have to invent something to talk about.

So stitching, stitching, stitching I will go and I'll be back soon hopefully with really good news right about the time my stay at home mom moniker expires! Blessings to you all. Follow your dreams and share your good news too! Happy Stitching!

Warrior/Inspire Me Thursday

This is the definition of warrior as per dictionary.com
1. a person engaged or experienced in warfare; soldier.
2. a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness, as in politics or athletics.

Some days when I embroider I feel like a warrior armed with my embroidery needle. Looking to find peace and joy with my needle. Trying to escape those things that make me feel like a different type of warrior.

Some days I think we all feel like a beast or a warrior, willing to fight with anyone about anything. Those kind of days are so difficult that we all need some sort of outlet to fight against those negativities. For me the answer is my embroidery needle. It never fails to bring me peace(and no not by sticking the other person with my embroidery needle). It brings me back to my center stitch by stitch by stitch. It's meditative and puts my attention on the one thing that will calm me down. I'm one of those people that picks up whatever energy is in my environment be it a positive energy or a negative one. It's something I've just recently become aware of(ironically when I am embroidering and something negative pops into my sphere of attention). It's like a big negative wind just blew in to see if it can upset my peace and tranquility. Sometimes it does(and I put down the embroidery) and sometimes I just work through it with stitch after stitch.

I don't really have anything else to talk about as I am in the aftermath of a foul wind and need to embroider instead of being a warrior but the point of this warrior post is to remind everyone that we all need stress relievers, something that can tame our warrior heart so that it cannot be so damn destructive. Find your embroidery and become a warrior for peace. Happy stitching.