Believe it or not this project came to me in a dream about three months ago. I dreamed vividly that I was stitching up the Evangeline border and that inside it I stitched my and my husband’s names and the date of our wedding anniversary. Our 20 th wedding anniversary is this coming July and I was making the embroidery to celebrate that. I woke up and immediately knew the project was beyond my skill level. But it stayed in my mind and recently I decided my skills had improved enough that I could give it a try. The anniversary is at the end of next month and there is no way I’ll have the project done by then. But I’m going to work hard on it and try to at least have made significant progress by then.
So far as you can see I’ve only worked on the outer border. I’ve ordered a pattern holder for my stand and once it arrives I’ll start working on the more complicated flowers inside. Truthfully I’m a little intimidated by the project, but I’m also excited by it. This morning I stitched out on my shaded patio for 2.5 hours. Patio stitching is my favorite and it was such a great way to spend a morning.
I‘ve been telling some friends that I’ve discovered the next trend— hot stitching. Some days I just want to stitch in the sunroom, even though it is easily ten degrees hotter than the rest of the house. I stitch and sweat and hydrate and by the end I feel so incredibly relaxed. See? Hot stitching!
Today I spent most of the day hot stitching. I’m almost done with one side of the pattern. It is rife with mistakes. This pattern is really a little too hard for me. But I’m enjoying the challenge and the chance to meditate on 20 years of marriage, which this piece will ultimately commemorate. And even with mistakes, isn’t it stunning?