Paradiso

This morning I had to get in touch by email with the company who issued my airline tickets for my upcoming trip to Louisville, KY. It was very painful for me. I had changed computers and email companies, passwords and email address, none of which CheapTickets. com really wanted to hear about. I am pretty much a failure at the really high tech communication, so I called their toll-free number after I spent about fifteen minutes of trying to make their computer understand my computer. Everything turned out well after I called. But still it was a frustrating way to start a Monday morning.

Which led me to thinking about two things. The first was why embroidery was so alluring to me, both when I started and now. It is the simplicity of the thing. I need a threaded needle and a piece of fabric to work on. Everything else is extraneous. Not that things can't get more complex, but essentially I can do what I do with the most basic of equipment

I have just finished work on a piece that is stitched onto perforated paper. It took about twenty hours to complete this particular stitchery. Those twenty hours were pure bliss. I sit in my studio with a booktape or music playing and I am lost in a fugue which only hunger or a phone call can draw me out of. The pleasing monotony of the stitch. Who said that? I think Lisbeth Perrone. a Scandinavian designer.

Papaver Rubens

The 4th of my perforated paper series. A manipulated photo was transferred onto the perf paper for background, then I stitched the poppies and stems over the top of it. This is ungraphed without even an outline, just a clear vision of what I wanted to portray.

And the second thing? Going to Louisville. For its 50th anniversary The Embroiderers Guild of America is holding the 2008 national seminar at national headquarters in Louisville. Going to a national seminar is pure pleasure, in fact I am hard put to think of anything I would rather do this August. Going to national seminar at headquarters is is like a glimpse of paradise to me. I will be surrounded by friends; and indeed, my best two friends will be my roommates--Ann Erdmann and Carole Rinard. I will see the culmination of two years of work in the opening and reception for the 19th National EGA Exhibit. I have a prize-winning piece in the exhibit myself which is the dollop of whipped cream on the cherry sundae. I will be surrounded by friends, acquaintances, comrades of my own three decades of membership. I will take classes to expand my own horizons in the areas of judging and needlework. What could be more satisfying for a stitcher?