I Make Things: Winter Edition

Winters are for hibernation in my world, which means lots of extra time for art. Sometimes, the making comes easy. Sometimes it doesn’t. I have come to accept this for what it is: a facet of my mental wellbeing. I try not to “push through” at times when it feels like rolling a stone up a mountain, and using that “me time” in other ways that feel more nourishing in the moment. I find this helps me to connect with my art, when I make it, in a more meaningful way. Learning to lean into that intuition has also helped to explore new themes and techniques. Even a new form!

Yes, after years of thinking about it, I am finally trying punch needle embroidery. Still in a very early learning phase, but I promise there will be a recap soon.

In the meantime, here are some of the other things I’ve been making.

A throwback to an old theme — one day I felt the need to work on something really bright and cheerful, so I created another abstract sunflower hoop. It’s like a ray of sunshine on a grey day.

I also did another, slightly different take on the painterly waterlily theme. This then led me into a new direction, exploring some landscapes.

This hoop was inspired by the work of Tom Thomson, one of the Group of 7 famous Canadian painters. Incorporating texture in various ways is the fun challenge of this style of embroidery. I like working with felt wherever I can because it’s easy to cut into shape and it provide a textural contrast to the floss.

This hoop was inspired by a painting by Gustav Klimt. I had used Klimt for inspiration before in my abstract floral hoops, so this was both a departure and a home-coming of sorts.

This last landscape was inspired by a photo by Jamie Beck of Provence in the spring. The flowers are irises, my favourite. Translating a photo (as opposed to a painting) into an embroidery design was more challenging than I was expecting; I am not entirely happy with how this hoop turned out, but perhaps I am being overly picky — my husband loved it.

And now for something completely different. I actually created this hoop in between some of the landscape ones; I needed a change of pace. I previously did a mermaid hoop years ago, and wanted to revisit that. I gave away the old hoop and, unfortunately, didn’t keep a photo of it. It would have been interesting to compare the two, years apart.

I randomly became obsessed with pomegranates recently, so I made this mini hoop for fun. I used some examples of medieval embroidery as inspiration, as that was the aesthetic that most appealed to me. I am not a fan of using gold thread in my embroidery — it’s a PITA to work with — but I made an exception because this design called for it.

Speaking of random, fun ideas — out of the blue, I became obsessed with the idea of a frog wearing a ruff collar, so I knocked up this frog prince design. I love it so much! Definitely one for my personal collection.