She was right. (Again)

Fact: Creative people have to create, or they get cranky. For reasons too boring to list, I found myself in a position to remember this the hard way over the winter. My medium of choice for the last several years has been paint but I just wasn't feeling it, for whatever reason.

After a few weeks with no creative outlet, you find yourself absentmindedly twisting paperclips into teeny little animals while on the phone at work. You start drawing pictures in the cheese on your plate after you finish off the pasta. Ornately folding scraps of paper. You get the idea. Then, you just get cranky.

A good friend & fellow artist kept making gentle suggestions. Maybe I would like to crochet? Take up photography? She always came back to embroidery. "You will love it." she would say confidently. Certainly she could see the crazy in my eyes, or maybe I unconsciously fashioned a tiny circus tent out of a gum wrapper in front of her, but she was relentless about the embroidery.

She was right. On a whim, I stopped by a fabric store on the way home one day when we had a chance of snow & ice in the forecast. While everyone else in central Arkansas was buying milk, bread & eggs I was on my hands & knees, face-first in a remnant bin at Hancock Fabrics. The moment I admitted to her that I was giving it a try, she started texting me links to embroidery videos on Youtube. I told you she was relentless.

  

So I have a new hobby. And I felt the need to publicly admit that Jennifer was right. (again.) Embroidered bracelets are piling up around my house at a rapid pace. Oh well. At least all of the paperclips are safe now, right?