Stitchin'

What's funny is that most people think I encourage so much art at my house because I have some desire to fill my home with creativity. The truth is that I'm really only looking for a few minutes to myself. I choose art (or more likely, crafts) because it's really all I know how to do. I try to get my kids set up with a project and then leave them alone. Hopefully they will leave me alone too. This has always worked well for Talia but not so much with Alex. Alex eats crayons, markers and playdough. His attention span is about 5 minutes and the setup and cleanup take at least 10 times that.

Certain projects do warm my heart. I really enjoy watching Talia get into anything sewing or fabric related. We've tried stitching before. She really needed my help every step of the way. We were trying to stitch fabric scraps onto a base fabric. T kept getting all tangled with it. That was a few months ago. This time I heat set an image she picked out (from Sublime Stitching) onto a handkerchief and she went to town. She never got turned around with it at all-- amazing! I got her started and then let her go. She used a real needle (with many needle-pricks to prove it) and real embroidery floss. She was extremely determined and sat for a long time with very little intervention. Alex was napping, of course. She was quite proud of her work. As a matter of fact, when I took this picture I asked her what she was doing and she said, "just looking" which she proceeded to do for quite some time. She has not, however, expressed interest in creating another embroidery masterpiece.

Where did I get the idea to make handkerchiefs you may ask? Talia is constantly picking her nose and eating it. I sewed her a few flannel handkerchiefs and embroidered her a few. She carries one all the times now and actually uses it. Often she will pick her nose with her finger and then put it in the handkerchief but hell, 1 out of 2 isn't bad! Major improvement!