I’ve been waiting to post about my latest embroidery because it was a gift for a fellow blogger and I didn’t want her to see it here first and ruin the surprise. But, she received it on Friday and I’ve forgotten to post the picture of it here!
Hannah of the artisan duck posted her goals for the year, commenting that she was going to have a resolution to ‘be brave and make it happen’. Her idea struck me as soon as I read it, and when she commented about taking ownership of it by writing it in purple I immediately wanted to make her an embroidered version.
Obviously I chose purple for the writing but mixed in a strand of gold to add some sparkle. I’m just annoyed at myself that I didn’t end the thread on the first row of words and start again on the second, as the thread shows up quite a bit behind the material. I slid a second piece of material behind it to try to disguise it a bit, but you can still see that… Though I hope it won’t be too obvious if it gets hung on a wall and head no light behind it. I definitely need to learn from this mistake and not do it again!
I debated for ages about how to decorate it and eventually decided on a bee and a flower. As I was sewing I found myself thinking about bees and how hard they have to work to make honey. But I realised that they also have a team of other bees to help them in their work. It also occurred to me that a bee’s work (collecting nectar from different flowers) has a positive side effect of pollinating plants, that the bee is presumably quite unaware of.
I wrote these thoughts in the card as I hope they will encourage hannah in her bid to be brave and make it happen this year, recognising that she is not on her own, that there’s a whole lot of people she can turn to for help if needed, and that she may find that she has an unexpected and maybe unnoticed positive effect on others in her journey.
Julia's Creative Year 