Creative Goals for May
an ambitious jumble of goals & inspirations seizing me this month
Hi friends,
I hope todays letter finds you in good spirits.
I’m very happy to annouce that I’m writing to you, for the very first time, from my brand new laptop! I can’t tell you how good it feels to finally be able to write from a computer screen and not from a phone or a crappy, dated ipad.
Today I’ll be taking you along with me while I compile a growing list of projects and practices I’d like to work on this month. Plus you’ll get a sneak peak at what you can expect to see from me in the next coming weeks.
I am an avid list maker, the proof being the endless lists scattered across my phone, journals and sketchbooks. My brain needs structure and clarity, otherwise it would be really difficult for me to actually get anything done, like ever.
Consistency, which I also associate with structure, is another thing I struggle with, but I like to believe this newsletter is helping me with that.
One of the reasons I even started Thread Webs in the first place was to have a way to hold myself accountable creatively, and I can say it’s definitley worked this far, as I’ve managed to showed up at least 90% of the time since starting this publication almost two years ago.
Thanks to this practice in consistency, I’ve been able to push myself to expand in ways I never expected, and for that I am truly grateful.
Here’s everything I hope to work on this month
Start a slow-stitch practice.
This has been on my mind for a while, but for whatever reason I just haven’t given it the priority I should have over other things.
While I of course love embroidering pieces with purpose, I also really like the idea of doing something soley for the enjoyment of it, without necessarily chasing some big end result. I kind of feel like, at it’s innermost sphere, that’s what life is really all about.
The nature of slow stitching is mindless and meditative, with no ultimate end goal besides feeling totally present in each passing moment. I find the freedom of color and composition present in slow stitch scrolls or intutive embroidery pieces really beautiful and inspiring.
Of course I can’t talk about slow stitching without mentioning fellow substackers like slowquietwork and Beatrice, who’s own slow stitching practices have inspired me to start one of my own.
I imagine that building a slow stitch practice could offer a nice break from other projects that require more thought and attention to detail, not to mention it’ll give me a reason to use up excess scrap fabric and thread that I wouldn’t have had a purpose for otherwise.
Continue working on the peace on earth tapestry.
There’s been some delay in the progress of this piece because I didn’t have the threads I needed, but I’ll be more focused on it now that I do.
I want to finish stitching the dove and the heart before moving onto the sun and other aspects. I’ve been tackling it section by section, figuring out colors and stitches as I go along. If I tried to plan it all out beforehand I’d probably never start..
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