Step 21. Love is in the air

I've been spending the morning hours this week stitching Valentine hearts.

Embroidery on wool felt.

I was originally inspired by zentangle hearts. I tried making some tentangles of my own to use as a pattern for my stitching, but I'm not zen enough to pull them off. I'm guessing zentangles are supposed to be relaxing and free, but I was stressed out thinking up doodles.

Instead, I free-styled these hearts with the needle in my hand instead of a pencil. I started with a French knot in the middle of the heart and just kept going around in circles until the spaces were filled. The white one went much more quickly than the red one because I copied the first pattern and didn't have to think as I stitched along. That was zen for me.

I got ideas from a heart tattoo I saw online and also from my bedspread. The bedspread was a convenient inspiration as I stitched these mostly in the early morning hours.

Happy Valentines Day.

Step 17. Break it down

Different people do things differently. Go figure.

When I have a project to do or a day to plan, I need to break it down into tiny steps. Other people don't do that - they jump right in and manage to do a bunch of things at once. That's great for them, but it's not how I work best. 

I know it's popular to multi-task and it seems like most people like to work that way, but that style feels like chaos to me. Focusing on one task is much more comfortable for me, and finishing one step motivates me want to keep on moving to the next. 

A border design of an ancient Roman mosaic I saw at the Met inspired me to draw it. I worked at it step-by-step this week, mostly in the early morning (thank you for helping me wake up early, Andy Traub).

Colored pencil on paper, inspired by Roman mosaic at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.

I'm not finished yet. The next step I want to do is adding a dark background, which is a new thing for me. I half-expect that I'll ruin the drawing in the process, but that's okay. I'm more interested in trying to add background color than I am in saving this drawing. 

Step 11. Wake up

I'm regaining a long-lost habit of waking up early in the morning to work on creative projects. A big coffee-cup cheers to author Andy Traub, author of The Early To Rise Experience, for helping me do it.

The project I'm working on now was first inspired years ago when I saw embroidery work by artist Andrea Dezso at an exhibition at the Museum of Arts & Design. In her Lessons from my Mother, Dezso stitched sayings from her mother. I loved the pieces and they've stayed in my mind since I saw them in 2008.

When I traveled to my hometown a few months ago, I knew I wanted to stitch something on the trip. My mom taught me to embroider when I was a girl, and she certainly had many sayings to stitch, though they are quite different than the sayings Dezso had to work with. My mom had an eternally sunny personality, and saying, "What's the good word?" was how she said "How are you?"

So that's the saying I stitched in the hotel room for the days surrounding my mom's funeral on my last visit home.

I'm now working on a second piece, copying the first one, as a gift for my sister's birthday. Normally when I make a gift for someone, I'm scrambling to finish in time and pulling a few all-nighters to get the piece finished. But, I'm not doing that this time - I'm working it stitch-by-stitch in the early morning.

If my mom were here now and asked me, "What's the good word?" I would tell her about how great the mornings are and she would agree.

Step 9. Finish

I finished my drawing of nuts. From left to right: walnut, pecan, hazelnut, almond, and that crazy Brazil nut that didn't want to cooperate with being cracked open neatly. But, it worked out. Abrigado!

I've been setting the alarm to wake up an hour early in the morning to have to work on projects. That's how I finished this project, by getting up early and working bit by bit every day with my morning coffee. It was easy to work slowly with this botanical drawing, of course, since the nuts don't wilt or change from day to day.

Step 3. Wake up.

I sipped the sunrise in my coffee cup this morning, the colors creamy and brown in my baby-blue mug. It’s a habit I drink in day after day, consistent as the dawn on the east side of town.

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Long before sunrise, late last night, I finished the notebook page I was working on.

I love this song in the morning. I like it late at night, too.