Sneezes, Stones and Stitches

This past week went by in a blur again – not because nothing happened, but because so much of it happened quietly behind the scenes. I’ve been busy filming videos (the kind that somehow take much longer than you expect!) and preparing samples for a new workshop (more on this at a later date).

Of course, “filming” doesn’t mean pressing record and calmly stitching. It usually means pressing record… then sneezing… stop recording. Restart … drop a spool of thread… stop recording. Then starting over again. You get the idea. And somewhere in the middle of all that, I had to move my table from room to room trying to escape the low sun from my south-facing windows, which meant reorganizing the cameras and reshuffling half the studio. What else could happen? I finished recording a long video – about 20 minutes – only to realize that my phone stopped recording at minute 4:15! Why? Why? My phone ran out of room!!! So I spent half a day deleting photos :( (Amazing how many photos one keeps, never to be looked at again – but that’s for another day).

I am still working with my rocks, pebbles and stones (what can I say? I find them addictive). Making a few more samples, some new work … While all that was going on, I came across a completely unrelated image on Pinterest: a small stitched piece that had nothing to do with what I was doing. Still, something in the shapes and layering caught my eye. And sparked an idea. It made me wonder what would happen if I took some of the familiar elements from my rock pieces, added small stitched fabric shapes to a background, and then placed a few stones on top to create something new – something more like a small composition than a single object.

That tiny spark was enough. Before I knew it, one sample led to the next, each variation opening a new door.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, I noticed something else: my work had quietly begun to form a series of sorts. Maybe a series within a series.

I didn’t plan it. Yet as I kept working on these behind-the-scenes pieces, each small experiment nudged the next. One combination pushed me to try something new, and before I knew it, the pieces were talking to each other – forming a rhythm, a family, a sequence.

There’s something comforting about that flow. It reminds me that creativity doesn’t always arrive with a grand plan. Sometimes it sneaks in from a random image on Pinterest, or from the way fabric scraps fall on the table, or from simply showing up to the work again and again – even if you’re in a different room every time.

As I laid out the samples this week (partly to photograph them, partly to make sure I hadn’t completely lost track of what I’d stitched), I could see how they belonged together. Not identical – but connected. Like chapters in a story I didn’t realize I was telling.

These pieces are helping me shape this new project, but they’re also whispering ideas for what might come next. That’s the beautiful thing about working in series —-your ideas have space to grow, echo, and evolve.

So even though the week felt quiet, the work was steadily developing. Sometimes the magic hides among the small things: a sneeze, a dropped spool of thread, a stray Pinterest image – and all the while, the stitches keep flowing.

Thanks for reading. I’m off to make some apple caramels with my daughter which has become somewhat of a pre-Christmas tradition. Until I write again, keep those stitches flowing,

Ana

PS: A while ago I wrote a series of posts about Working in a Series. I invite you to read them to see what it is all about.

On working in a series I