Familiarity

The team at Inspirations HQ has recently undertaken a new project.

Now without giving too much away before the book’s official release, we’re working through the process of updating and republishing a particularly popular project from years gone by.

Whilst we’d become intimately acquainted with the project on the pages of its original publication and through seeing the many iterations produced by your needles and threads, for some of us it was the first time we’d seen the piece firsthand.

After spending the day at photography, pouring over and capturing the details of the piece once again, we realised there’s some truth in the saying that ‘familiarity breeds contempt’. Whilst contempt is far too strong a word for how we felt, we realised that our close association with the project over many years had indeed led to a loss of awe. Perhaps a better way to phrase it, would be to use William Hazlitt’s words:

‘Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes the edge off admiration.’

From its imaginative conception, whimsical design, flawless attention to detail and immaculate construction, we absolutely finished the day with a fresh admiration for the piece and viewed it once again with the respect and wonder it so deserves.

And that made us consider whether familiarity has also taken the edge off our admiration for what we’ve created with needle and thread from years past, and we think it just might have!

We could all do with lifting that all too familiar framed piece off the wall, or pausing to notice afresh the much-used fob hanging from our favourite pair of scissors and appreciate again all that went into the design, stitching and finishing and delight anew in what was created from the work of our hands.