Have Your Say

Life of Stitch

This week we’re picking up from where we left off last time, with some more of your responses to All Stitched Up! issue #393 as well as a couple of nice thankyous!

We received an intriguing email from Linda in response to our welcome from issue #393, titled Life Lessons, as she had been thinking a lot about where she fits in time. Linda referenced Einstein’s belief about the fourth dimension, that it is time – after length, width and height. ‘At age 87 I do not fully understand his theory, but perhaps it is not too far off my thoughts on time.’

She continues with her own theory on time: ‘I believe time has three dimensions: past, present, and future. At any given time, I exist in the present. Who I am in the present is determined by who I was in the past. In the past I learned to stitch from my mother and my granny. I spent hours sitting at their knees learning to thread my needle, to put my fabric in the hoop and to create a stitch.’

‘Present me looks back at these experiences and is proud of past me. Proud that I learned to create these stitches, proud that I continued to practise them, and proud that I became more skilled.

Stitch has taught me that life is past me, present me and future me.’

A wonderfully thoughtful passage, Linda. What a lovely way to think, that our life is lived multi-faceted in time consistently.

Darcy also responded to our Life Lessons welcome with some of the lessons she has learned in her life. She suggests we take ‘one step and one thread at a time every day. This makes things easier to pick up and just begin.’

Darcy learned a lesson from Gay Ann Rogers that she practices, which is to always leave your work with a threaded needle ready to go. Another she employs is to stitch at least one thread a day*. ‘Small steps accumulate fast. So, for big work projects I break it down into small steps and schedule at least one step every day. In both cases momentum keeps going and a lot of work gets done.’*

All Stitched Up! issue #387 saw us trying to help Kate with a finishing solution for a piece of stumpwork she wanted to liberate from storage. As always, we received so many solutions from our community! We hoped one might be fit for purpose and are thrilled to share an update from Kate.

First of all, she wanted to thank everyone who offered so many great ideas. Kate has found a white box frame to finish her piece and says she is pleased it is protected and now on show! ‘I may just leave it flat or hang it (if I can find a spare bit of wall!) mainly I’m grateful that you and the lovely community prompted me to finally frame it. Here’s the finished item.’

We’re so glad to have helped you find a finishing solution that keeps your stitched work out of storage Kate – it is beautiful!

Finally, we have some words from Sue who has found inspiration from our publications for a completely different creative outlet. As an Inspirations subscriber for 20 years, Sue has had wonderful hours stitching many projects. However, in the past few years, she has traded her needle and thread for a paint brush.

At times she will come back to stitching but sometimes she just can’t help her creative urges! ‘I was happily stitching Allium Meadow by Jo Butcher when I was completely taken with the photo in the top left hand corner of page 34 of Inspirations issue 113.  I found I just kept looking at it and decided to paint it.’

L – Photo from Inspirations issue #113 | R – Sue’s Painting

‘Thank you to the wonderful stylists and photographers who help to make your magazines as beautiful as they are and thank them so much from me for the inspiration for the painting. I enjoyed doing it so much!’

We’re so glad to inspire your craft Sue, no matter the medium you may be using!