I have always been interested in a variety of arts-based crafts and hobbies. As an adult I’ve enjoyed learning from a number of courses or workshops over the years. After finishing my master’s degree, I had to wait about a year to start my doctoral work. My husband kindly suggested I needed a hobby at which to direct all the energy usually focused on my studies.
He was not wrong.
I took up jewelry making and spent a year honing that work before my studies took over all that energy and then some! I remembered his push for a hobby when I finally successfully defended that little book I wrote. At some point in the year after I wrapped up my dissertation, I decided I would need a hobby again. I wanted something portable and that could travel easily. I’d seen tons of snarky, funny, beautiful, brilliant works of embroidery on Etsy. I’d purchased a few to decorate our home and started to think maybe I could do that too…
I bought my first kit from Hoffelt and worked on it sneakily in the days leading up to mother’s day 2018. My mother, who had cross-stitched all my life, was delighted with my first effort.
My first embroidery kit from Hoffelt. May 2018.
In the six years since, embroidery has become so much more than just a hobby. I found artists online who commented about how it helped them disconnect and feel more human. How helpful it was for depression and anxiety to do something with one’s hands (this article is a good place to start on some of the benefits). A treasured friend and incredible fiber artist supported my efforts and we chatted about the feminist empowerment we feel when doing our crafts, considered “traditional women’s work.” I’ve really identified with the writing from Stitchology Crafts on how needlework becomes devotional practice, too.
In these last many years, I’ve completed nearly 40 projects that are embroidery or needle arts-related. I’ve made friends across the country (and globe!) with stitch groups meeting virtually. I’ve travelled to Baltimore to learn from Sarah K. Benning and Lexington to learn from Bob Haven. I’ve delighted over stitches I’m proud of and said less than kind things at fabric and floss as I ripped out stitches to start again. In all of it, I’ve found immense joy.
At some point, I realized I’m my best self when I make time for stitching. When I don’t, I feel it in my bones, an absence of something that makes me who I am. Of something that gives me pause, focus, and peace.
I’ve made new home hoops, Christmas ornaments, wedding gifts, a Ron Swanson face, and a million stitches to work through the grief of losing my momma. I’ve completed punch needle projects and started to hoard collect projects for the future in a variety of formats. I’ve chatted about fiber with anyone who has the slightest interest, including sharing the benefits with a friend who is now quite the embroiderer in her own right!
As I stab the fabric with a needle over and over in a pattern, I can often disconnect from thinking about all the things I must. I can enjoy sitting next to others while they work, chatting or in silence. I find incredible relief from doing something that does not make me money or need to, that does not require my brain to work in the same way my work does, and that lets me strive to learn something so different from my daily work as professor.
There are hobbies that come and go – I don’t still make jewelry or felt flowers, though I once enjoyed both. But there are some that I think connect you with yourself in a way that’s hard to explain unless the person listening to you also gets it. Finding my way back to stitching after I lost my momma and after healing from a very difficult time with Bell’s Palsy allowed me to find me again. The fight back through each tiny stitch has helped me heal in two very dark moments where I wasn’t sure I could get back to stitching or me.
I care deeply about taking care of myself, but the reality is my hands hurt sometimes from arthritis, and my left eye is unlikely ever to be quite as strong as it was before Bell’s Palsy. Some days, after a long day at a screen, there’s not enough left eye strength left for stitching. But when there is, I stitch. And I plan to keep on until physically I cannot. (At which point, yes, I have made plans to pass on my works in progress to people who get it. Obviously).
All my life I’ve wanted to make a quilt. I don’t quite have the space right now to take on a massive, traditional quilting project, but I found applique quilting and decided it was a good first step. Last night, after 4.5 months, I finally finished my Alison Glass Cozy Quilt. Every stitch made by hand, no machine work.
Our puppy is convinced this quilt was made for him to burrow beneath – in fact, he did a lot of that while I stitched.
After finishing this last night (and maybe bursting into tears), I realized I was less concerned about how long it took than the joy I felt at having made a quilt. I am a quilter.
I could point out every mistake to you, of course but how will I ever be a better stitcher or make a quilt with less mistakes if I don’t try? Of course, the internet is littered with perfect quilts with two-hour shipping. But I wanted a family treasure for my dogs to burrow under and steal from the humans on the couch.
And that is more than enough. It’s everything, really.
