100 Days of Stitching

Good morning! I hope everyone is having a lovely summer. Mine has been rather more stuffed than I am accustomed to, which is fun, but not conducive to regular blogging. I’ve embarked on a 100 days of stitching project and I wanted to share it with you. I won’t be sharing daily updates, as that puts pressure on me to perform. Instead, I’m working on it and will share when I feel like it. This feels like a more reasonable approach, and certainly has been more fun. This time I’m working on a stitch book! I’m following a construction technique I learned from Ann Wood.

The Project

Ann’s Stitchbook project involved making 20 pages and working on each for 15 minutes per day. I liked that idea, but I haven’t been able to stick to it. I’m making a lot of pages and working on them for as long as I feel like. Each page doesn’t get 4 days in a row. Some days I do 15 minutes on one page. Some days I do an hour and move between pages. The project sits on my sofa and gets attention whenever I feel like it. Yesterday I spent a lot of time playing. It’s very nice to have something with no real rules, other than to spend at least a little time with it each day.

Here is the cover of my book. (It measures about 5″ x 6.5″) I”m totally infatuated with the tab and slot method of book construction Ann has demonstrated. I have so many ideas for projects to make using this technique! For now, though, I’m focusing on just doing stitch collage pieces that make me happy. The resulting pieces are weird and just for me. I’m building on Helen Wells’ idea of creating an Art Show for Me, using my favorite medium.

My pieces are fabric collage. I’m not concerned about raw edges or fraying. In fact, I want the pieces to fray a bit and develop their own life. This is a place for my favorite tiny scraps to find a home. I’ve been doing a lot of embroidery in here, too. It’s a great place to practice new stitches. It’s also a good place to use up little bits and pieces of threads, and park little oddities I come across.

The Supplies

The first step I took in this project was to decide on a container. I opted for this little vintage picnic basket. It’s cute and portable. I used a little box from my studio to hold an assortment of threads, chose some scissors, pins and needles, and then it was time for the fabric.

I cut pages per Ann’s instructions, sourcing them from my loose woven fabric stash. I also decided to use some of the fabric samples given to me by a local interior decorator. I pulled a bunch of linen pieces that I found compelling. I cut the 20 I would need, then cut 20 more because I was having fun. The pieces were folded and tucked into the basket. Then I pillaged my Kawandi basket for tiny pieces that were too small to work with. If my son hadn’t taken my scrap hiding pouf, I probably would have opened that up for a rummage.

This is my kit, all set up. It is hard to close it and walk away. There is something about the texture of linen that makes me want to sit down and stitch on it. Oh. There is a little journal in here, too. Sometimes when I work questions come up. What happens if I twist up a skinny strip and stitch it down? Can I take so many running stitches that you can’t tell what the original fabric looks like?

Pages in Progress

Here are some of the pages I’ve been working on. I started my project on June 28th. I made a cover first, then finished 3 more pages so I could turn it into a folio. I was anxious to see how the technique worked, and I’m so charmed by it. According to Google, I’ll be doing 100 days of stitching until October 6th. I doubt I’ll stop, though. This has been too enjoyable.

One idea I’ve had for this is using it for my embroidery class project. I love the idea of having a page for each chapter in my journey class, maybe two. One listing all of the stitches, and another using them in a collage piece. I think giving the class that little container to fill would be perfect. It would also be an easy project to set students to at the beginning, in case they are struggling with the concept of a class with no specific project.

Have you tried a 100 Days project? They can be intimidating sometimes – how could I possibly do anything every day for 100 days? Here is my secret – if I decide to stop, I stop. This isn’t for a graded class, and no one is keeping score. However, I know when I stick with a project, it changes me. My watercolor project was a revelation for me. This one has been, too, and it has only been a couple of weeks so far.

I hope you get to spend time today creating something that makes you smile. I’ll be back later this week to talk more about my summer adventures and why I’ve been so quiet lately.

Happy stitching!