It seems to me that the more digital we become, the more boring much of the visual output. While the advent of art tools has created a more democratic space for creatives, I think we are in danger of losing the beauty of imperfect handmade items.
The speed in which we can make things means we could lose the love of slow and thoughtful creativity. If we’re not careful everything is going to end up looking the same. Tasteful but boring.
My love of DIY culture and craft activism informs the esthetic of everything I do. That’s why I love raw fabric edges that will alter over time, and items that have a uniqueness to them.
I enjoy using small fabric scraps that would otherwise be thrown away, reducing waste and fighting against our throw away culture in some small way.
For the most part, I just love using my hands to solve a problem and go on a journey. 

​There’s a bunch of different uses for embroidery. Here are some of my favorites.

Make a Gallery Wall
I joke that my daughter is my patron because many of the projects I finish end up in her room OR she asks me to make something for her. Consequently, her room is filled with pillows, blankets and artwork that I made for her, including a collection of embroidery and other fiber artworks that make up a gallery wall over her bed.
I also have a gallery wall in our downstairs toilet! These projects are all inspired by witchy things for a bit of consistency. It’s fun when people go to the bathroom and come out enchanted by all the little projects they discover.
If you want to do a gallery, keep to a theme if possible. I like to keep all my completed projects in hoops to give some consistency. To hang them I use removable hooks so that I’m not filling the walls with holes. 

Give them Away as Gifts
I do this a lot. I don’t like clutter and my own taste would limit the projects I do. Instead, thinking about family and friends and what they like, means I am more adventurous in my work and therefore develop more skills. Often, I will do an embroidery that I don’t particularly like just to get the experience of a skill I haven’t developed.
Make a Quilt
Save your embroidery projects and sew together several to make a quilt. To do this it helps to have designs that are similar in size. The size of your quilt is up to you. You can simply sew together the designs or choose a complimentary fabric to use as a border.

Make Pennants or Bunting
I am currently working on some pennants for my local community garden with different fruits, veggies and plants on them.
You could add some of your designs to flags as gifts or to decorate.
Make a Greetings Card
A personalized card is always appreciated. I used to send my family lots of these cards and they would keep them and often frame them.

Make a Patch
Cut it to size and add it to clothing or a bag.
Save, Store and Use Later
One day you might realize you forgot a birthday, or you want to add something to another art project. That’s when you can go through all the embroideries you’ve done and see if there is something you can use. 
How do you use your embroideries? Share in the comments.

OK, more bragging on my friends and their creativity. This time I am making some pieces for Safi Mahaba of the Peace Gardens and Market. We met about 10 years ago when we moved into the house we are still in now. The community gardens that she and her partner DeWayne Barton started in response to the Iraq war were the deciding factor in our move. Over the years she has become a friend and mentor. I wanted to show my love for her and the work she does by making some pennants for the garden. This is one of the completed flags, showing a Cherokee Purple tomato.
I hope to do several more. Applique and embroidery are fast becoming my favorite techniques, which is really exciting!

https://www.urbanpeacegardens.org/

The other day I was working on a piece the required some pins. So I got out my trusty pin cushion and got to work. A smell filled my nose that triggered a remarkable feeling of nostalgia and realized that the scent, so familiar and evocative, was coming from the said pin cushion.
I realized that I have had it since I was fourteen and I am now forty three. 

I learned to sew when I was about seven, using thick, blunt darning needles to coax chunk yarn through the canvas that made bright graphic patterns. I still remember the delight I felt when the small repetitive action of sewing resulting in something beautiful.  

But it wasn't until a few years later that my craft addiction really took hold. It was in the haberdashery department of the John Lewis department store in Oxford Street, London.  I had 
been to little craft shops before, but this one was on another level. It seemed huge, with row upon row of sewing notions, fabric, yarn, everything and anything you might need for your needlecraft projects. It was a place of enchantment, and from then on I was in love tapestry and cross stitch. 

One Christmas I saw on display there a large wooden sewing box that had cantilevered sections. It was quite expensive and I knew I might not get it as gift. But there it was on Christmas morning. My mum, a sewing enthusiast herself, had furnished it with some essential items, including the pin cushion that is sitting on my table right now, thirty years later. It's clear now that what she actually got me was tree ornament that happened to be scented, hence the Proustian trigger of nostalgia when I used it recently. That pin cushion has followed me from home to University, to my first flat with the man who would become my husband and across the Atlantic when I emigrated from the UK eleven years ago. It's presence in my life reminds me of how long I have spent developing my sewing skills, a period of close to thirty years.

There are tons of parallels between making art and making magick. Both require receptivity, process, practice, trust in one's intuition. Another similarity between the two for me has been that I had figure out both my creative process and my Craft alone. I didn't go to art school so I never learned the discipline or peaks and valleys involved in making art. Consequently for a long time, I simply gave up when a piece failed, or I felt stumped. It's taken me years to get to a point where I am making consistently and I am still a beginner in many ways. 

The same goes for my Pagan practice. I have been fortunate enough to have become part of some incredible Pagan organizations and groups, but recently, my path has become fainter and fainter. So despite all this I feel like I am just starting my journey over. 
In Paganism, the spiral is one of our sacred symbols and I sort of took it for granted. Yes, yes, life's a spiral.  Perhaps the symbol has several meanings. For me, at this moment it reminds me that we can always begin again. That starting from point A is not one time thing and linearity is over rated.

And so I have found myself thinking back to what drove me when I was younger when the Craft was new and I was an avid maker. Going to the root is not going backwards, it is a returning home. 

These are the last of the Hamsa and Ornate Pentacle design of tote bag. I just dropped them off in time for the holidays at Asheville's Raven and Crone. This store is such an asset to the community and has been going for almost ten years. I am thrilled they are moving to a larger space nearby in the new year.
I want to express my gratitude to them for supporting my creative endeavors. As a maker, it meant the world to me when I had people tell me they loved my work. Many times I have considered giving it all up for lots of reasons but their encouragement has kept me going. 
So go by if you are in the area and show them some love, they have incredible stock. Or visit their website: ​https://www.ashevillepagansupply.store/

Embroidery does not need to be about the end result. Ritual stitching is a process of stitching regularly, perhaps daily in a practice of spell casting or contemplation. In this piece I created a spell for someone I knew who was suffering and was ready to leave this realm. In the work I focused my energy on providing for them a painless transition, the vibrancy of the colors reflected their personality.  The movement of sewing can be a spellcasting, its repetitive nature builds power into the work. 
I learned about more slow and mindful stitching through the work of Clare Wellesley Smith. "She specialises in projects that use local, natural colour, created from home-grown and locally foraged plants. Dyes and stitches on reclaimed cloth are used in slow processes that allow time for consideration of methods of production and narratives of use."
The forms were based on  a painting by my good friend Ursula Gullow. See more of her work here.