Wherein the Embroiderer Has Regrets

The next day, the embroiderer returned to the studio and took up the step-outs from her Playful Free-Form Embroidery book. Then, feeling regret for having tossed the red flower in the trash bin with her cookie wrappers, she rescued the flower and placed it on the edge of the design. Surely the flower would hold no grudge.

Then in a show of bravado, she cut the flower in half and stitched it to the edge of the design. It is now a sad half-flower. A tragic reminder that her rash use of the scissors has caused more than one regret in her life. But she can’t think about that now. There is more stitching to do.

Her attention rested on the yellow orb in the sky. Was it, in fact, the moon as suggested in her original Natural Gardening design? With the addition of the house, didn’t it more sensibly represent the sun rather than a moonlit garden?

And so she embellished the yellow orb, adding a jolly blanket stitch to trim the edge and fly stitches to create rays. She chose a size 8 pearl cotton thread called Butter from the quaint Artfabrik dye shop located in the state of Illinois. The Artfabrik dyer was known to favor cookies much as the embroiderer did. And so she trusted the dyer and thus the quality of her threads.

To be continued….

Wherein the Embroiderer is Seduced

The embroiderer slowly drew the black wool with bright red flowers and the tiny house from the storage basket. She recalled her reluctance to view the step-outs after a year of laboring over her Playful Free-Form Embroidery book. She also recalled that her back was killing her from weeding the garden.

Maybe it was time to sit for a bit and stitch indoors without a swarm of mosquitoes eating her alive. Besides, the step-outs looked so innocent, so friendly.

So in a flurry of activity (and with a mild twinge in her back), she grabbed her scissors, rushing to snip the threads holding the grass shape below the house step-out.

Her hands twisted the house shape and sought the scissors again, only to trim the light blue felt fabric into a cloud shape encircling the house.

Then she hurriedly removed the bright red flower on the right of the black fabric and tossed it into the trash along with her cookie wrappers.

Sure she ate a lot of cookies, so what? It was the flower she had to give up, not the cookies.

As she stitched the house where the red flower had been, she thought, “What madness was this? Tomorrow I must return to my garden. That bindweed is choking out the beans and the tomatoes are looking a little verklempt”. But then she laughed and bent over the embroidery again and popped another cookie into her grinning mouth.

To be continued….

Wherein the Embroiderer is Haunted

Upon opening the box from her editor, the embroiderer glowered at the step-outs from her book, Playful Free-Form Embroidery. Eager to return to her garden, she tossed the step-outs in the Elfa baskets carefully purchased for her new studio. The Elfa shelving system groaned under the weight of the step-outs. She slammed the cupboard door shut and switched off the studio light.

But the step-outs called to her. They haunted her waking moments as she weeded her garden and killed mosquitoes. It was as if the heartless Elfa baskets begged her to return to the studio.

One day the embroiderer cleaned the damp soil from her Sloggers chicken gardening shoes and paused at her studio door. Perhaps one peek a the step-outs would end the haunting. Maybe one glance at the step-outs would reaffirm her wish to put the book’s stitching behind her.

Or would it?

The embroiderer slowly drew an Elfa basket from the cabinet. What was it that compelled her to sort through the step-outs? Her fingers itched to touch the texture of each one, to caress the threads she had stitched so long ago.

As she forced herself to return the step-outs to their Elfa basket her eyes fell on swatch of black wool with bright red flowers and the small house that lay like a companion next to it. It was as if the moonlit garden longed for the promise of daylight as if the tiny house wished for a home.

To be continued….