Musings from a 100 Day Stitch Book Challenge

Blank cloth pages.

Hand stitch for 15 minutes per day for 100 days. Dive in.

Two days in and weird things have come to the surface. Like meditative thoughts. And irritations. And paying attention to where I feel thoughts in my body type things.

Nan, go back to the prompt and re-read what this is about:

"This exercise is so not about perfection. It is for listening to yourself. It’s for your imagination, it’s a place to try things – explore. Show up, try stuff, make mistakes, try again, get somewhere new. 100 days of that is magic."  ~Ann Wood

Noted. Things are supposed to come up. It's not about the sewing.

~

Ann Wood is a creative in New England who has amassed quite a following for her beautiful art, small birds, dolls, and other whimsical sewing patterns via Ann Wood Handmade. A couple of years ago she initiated the 100 Day Stitch Book Challenge.

I don't know her, but she seems cozy and warm, thoughtful, mindful, and gentle. A you-be-you kind of person. There is an ease and a permission to sit and stitch and not really know where you're going with it that instantly drew me in to her fold. Something I seem, apparently, to must need right now. 

The beauty of her website is like a coffee table book on my computer screen. Just flipping through her blog posts lowers my blood pressure. 

I made one of her freebie patterns a few months ago - a sweet cat. And then I started following her instagram. And now I joined her stitch group and started this stitching challenge. 

A welcoming community on a virtual hang-out forum. Minimal rah rah, but a sure sense that you can accomplish things. A nice congratulations when you do. And if not, so what; try again tomorrow. 

Day One was yesterday, Friday, January 17. I had cut out my 20 "pages" on Thursday night and made a little box of scraps and thread and snips that would be my project box for the next 100 days. I knew I needed to limit myself so as not to get overwhelmed and over think the whole thing. Check.

I settled into a chair I don't normally sit on in my den; set a timer on my phone; and put on Yo Yo Ma on my Spotify for a smidge of company.

The first page already had a bit of stitching on it from my slow stitch camp in Maine last summer. And instantly fond memories of the trip enveloped me. A friend I made there is doing this challenge with me, and that feels nice.

This practice resembles the slow stitchy-ness of camp with the happy little patches of color from my day with Sarah Hibbert and the powerful mindful stitching/poetry afternoon with Katherine Ferrier. 

You must look each of these people up. Just lovely, lovely souls and makers.

When your hands are busy, a space opens in your brain to a reservoir of deep thoughts and creative ideas. 

As I mentioned, the first "page" I selected had some stitching on it. I have no recollection what it was to become. Just a random shape of chain stitches. Then I picked a fabric scrap from my box that was a similar shape and color. As I stitched, I began to wonder what had been cut out from the missing part. What had it become? The beginning of this cut edge was the ending of the other piece. Beginnings and endings. What is gone? What did I keep? Where do all the little scraps of fabric and pieces of us end up? How do we leave things? This little piece kept folding up. So I let it be. And stitched it down as it lay.

~

Day 2 thoughts. I really should be using embroidery floss. Go find my bins of floss. Can't find my snips. Emboridery floss needs a different needle...go find that.

I really could use an embroidery hoop for this. Up and down the stairs to gather everything was turning into such a pain for me today. I let all this silly stupid crap get under my skin. As one does.

I forced myself to just sit and start without a hoop. Just begin. 

I don't know how long I was stitching before I realized that my mood had shifted. I hadn't set a timer, but I think it was probably close to the 15 minute mark when I was fully calm. 

And as one of my dear friends (who is an artist and makes beautiful art!) says...it's ok to make ugly art. 

It's not ugly. It's not pretty. It's meh. And that's ok for today. 

~NW