Thread and Needle

Embroidery came into my work as a way to put design onto things people would actually wear and keep. A printed graphic sits on top of a garment; a stitched one becomes part of it. This spans both machine and hand work — the Palatine Library sweatshirt, the embroidered Halloween sweatshirt, the family Christmas pieces, the small chest-placement designs, the hand-embroidered felt ornaments, the felt Happy Birthday banner, and the hand-embroidered baby mobile with its felt stars and clouds. The hand-stitched pieces take significantly longer and I keep choosing them anyway. There's a visible difference in a satin stitch pulled by hand — slight irregularity, real texture, evidence of a person. For gifts especially, that irregularity is the entire point.