Just about the minute I started playing with embroidery, I started playing with textiles and applique. I tried out a few pieces last year. First, I created this scene loosely following a tutorial from a library book. My favourite part is the circles!
Then I created this design because I’m obsessed with manual typewriters. It has button keys and sea glass for the space bar!
And I added a big embroidered panel and small boro patches to my favourite denim jacket this summer:
When I started embroidering, I wanted very much for it to be a little to no investment hobby for me, and although I did buy a couple of hoops and some skeins of floss, I’ve more or less kept it to upcycling or using donated textiles. The background of the lake scene above, for example, is a chambray shirt all three of my kids wore at one point as they grew through it, and a lot of other scraps were donated by a sewist friend who makes her own clothes.
It was only recently, though, that I realized my rather rustic approach to stitching and textiles actually had a name: slow stitching. Near as I can piece together, it’s basically using small scraps and embroidery stitches in a sort of freeform style with influences from quilting and boro along the way. (I also played with the idea of sashiko a bit, but the rigid geometry and patterns are the opposite of what I like about freeform slow stitching.)
I made this sachet for a friend’s birthday, dipping into my textile stash and using some beautiful variegated sashiko thread from Trailhead Yarns. I changed directions a few times in mid- project (I am terrible about planning and tend to be keen to start before I have a clear idea of where I am going) but I’m happy with how it ended up. The printed cotton scraps mostly came from a local fabric flea market, and the cat and hedgehog prints were so perfectly my friend that it couldn’t have been made for anyone else.
Note to self: the colours get blown out too easily when you edit on your iPhone! I haven’t examined it this zoomed-in before. Ah well.
Anyway, I really like the idea of slow stitching and building textures and patterns with textiles. I especially like stitching handheld, without a hoop. I’ve also splurged on a small collection of beads and embellishments, because who doesn’t love beads? (Apparently my family, when I accidentally pour them into a bag with a hole in it and they zoom every which way across the hardwood floor.) It’s a wonderfully un-tense way to embroider, where the process is as important – and enjoyable! – as the outcome.
Have you experimented with slow stitching? Is there a more fulsome definition of the term than just “rustic embroidery with no rules”?