I took this photo outside our apt building this AM and now all my neighbors must think I’m crazy– tying an apron to a fence at 8 AM…

I’ve been looking for a stitching art to do for a while now. My mother is an amazing quilter and, when she was much younger, did a fair amount of cross stitch and other sewing. I’d say that almost none of her talent wore off on me. Although I can happily spend hours working on book binding or making 100 of the same card sewing just seems so dull.

The problem is that I want to sew. Even though it bores me I really, really would like to sew clothes or knit. I’ve tried to learn to crochet but that was a terribly ill-fated project. Knitting I could do, it bored me a bit but I could do it. Crochet just didn’t even make sense to me. I kept looking at the instructions in Happy Hooker and thinking “um, what? They want me to put the hook where?”

After resigning myself to buy stitched things from Etsy I heard a CraftSanity podcast with Jenny Hart, founder of Sublime Stitching. Hart managed to convince me that anyone, even people who have failed at every other stitching art could embroider. At the time, I’d just finished my first year of grad school and thought, “oh I’ll treat myself to one of her starter kits.”

Well ladies and gentlemen– we have a winner. Embroidering has all the things I like about a craft project that have been missing in previous stitching arts I’ve tried. It is quick(ish), colorful, I see results fast, and the projects can be as big or as small as I want. Oh, and there is no major equipment to pull out or put away. When you live in a tiny apartment with someone else and there are no doors this is a major selling point.

My question is: what do you do with the back? Are you supposed to tie knots all the time or is it okay to have some of those longer stitches as you move from one part of the pattern to another? Also, how sturdy is embroidery– can you (hand) wash it? I picked an apron for my first attempt and plan to fill it up with a lot of stuff while I practice the many, many variations on embroidery stitching.

Right, so while I’m not 100% sure I’ll be able to master anything beyond the simple chain stitch that I used on this little owl I want to try– and this is a bit step beyond where I was with all the other stitching arts I’ve tried but didn’t quite take to.