Author: janetsyarncraft

Today is a beautiful day, and so is any other new day for me. Every day has its own allure. If you choose to appreciate the morning sun’s strokes of light painting the clouds, the sound of wind finding its way through the leaves or even the form and sound of the milk rising in the sufuria as it comes to a boil then like me, you will discover there’s so much to life that we take for granted.

In the spirit of commemorating my days, I take time to celebrate the day I took the bold step of starting off my cross stitch journey with this piece that I titled “The Green Rabbit”.

It is a very simplified version of the form of a rabbit. I got the pattern, the material , the yarn, the hoop and even the needle all from my mum’s embroidery stash and decided to have a go at it. It took me a really long time to complete! Looking back, I think I chose the green color because again, from her stash of  supplies,it proved to be the most abundant color and not because rabbits are herbivores. Haha!

I must have been an ambitious girl, who went ahead and even included white beads( which, you guessed right, I sneaked out of my mum’s stash) around the rabbit’s border, just to try and spice it up a little.

Now that’s the kind of enthusiasm I embody in my work, and if that was my humble beginning, I wonder what a proud ending would look like.

Let us flash back a bit today, call it a flash back Friday, shall we? I heard you say okay, so let’s get on.

Growing up in our home, mama had this wall hang placed up at one of the corners in the living room. She often told me stories of how good she was at her embroidery class that at one time, a visiting nun was so impressed by her skill that she chose to teach her the art of cross stitching. That is how this piece of ‘The Church’ came about.

As time went by, its position in our living room was slowly replaced by other things owing to the dynamics of time and family life. ‘The Church’ was slowly pushed out, and eventually found a place in the store, buried deep among the archives.

Several years later, mama dug it out and carried out works of restoration on it. That’s when a curious Janet started interrogating it.

Janet saw that the background used was jute fabric. She wondered how now?

Jute is a woven fabric made from the skin of the jute plant or sisal fibres which may sometimes be combined with other vegetable fibres. This means that it is a natural fabric. One of its inherent qualities is its durability, no wonder mama was able to retrieve it intact after so many years.

Hessian fabric is a slightly refined version of jute. It appears more chic and is available in different colours, though the characteristic attributes are that of the jute fabric.

Hessian is my choice of fabric. I enjoy exploring the hessian fabric as it presents endless possibilities. Since it is a woven textile, it is made up of vertical and horizontal strands of threads (namely warps and wefts respectively) that interlock evenly to make up the material.

In counted cross stitch, every warp and every weft counts. An individual stitch is made by counting single strands of the material and passing thread over one, two, three, four or even five strands of processed sisal or vegetable fibres.

Every strand of the fabric matters and so does every addition or subtraction of a strand, without which the end result would look shabby, but with which every stitch made contributes to the wholeness of the image. I rest my case.

The hands are a precious part of the body. I mean, they can do a lot of things, for example, they can greet, eat, wash, type, lift, clap and a whole host of other activities but to me they can above all……….stitch.

The stitch is not just a stitch, it is a part of me travelling through the hands and diffused through the fingers onto the fabric. A single stitch made by me has such weight, so how about a whole piece of art?

I believe any hand-made art carries the spirit of the person who made it. This gets lost in industrially made products. Well, I’m not against them, but there is so much beauty and power embedded in a hand crafted piece of art. Knowing that another human being actually spent several hours thinking through the concept , the colors, the materials, where and when to stitch……wow!

And I do not just stitch, the setting must be right. The space must match my mood of the day, speaking of which it takes several days to complete a piece. How the angle of the sun’s rays hit my window, the type of music playing in the background, the textures around me, the smells around me, my views as I stitch. I engage all my senses as I stitch, except the sense of taste, reason? The stitching process is so intense that I cannot afford to eat as I stitch or else I’ll lose my rhythm!

Since it takes several days to complete a piece, needless to say, that is a lot of me on a piece! I get so attached to my pieces, that it hurts to let go of them, yet it is necessary. The feeling I get when someone falls in love with my completed work of art is worth the pain.

Did I just give a sneak preview of my work in progress?