The Embroidered Heart and the Fear of Failure

I love the beautiful symbol of love and its many pains; the heart. I’ve been obsessed with the heart shape for over a decade, and I am just now working on several different textile pieces for an exhibition I want to set up. I think I stopped working on my embroidered hearts last year so that I wouldn’t finish them – in fear of having to actually do something with them.

A while back I worked on even smaller hearts, on artist trading cards, ATC:s. As I have been looking at the photos, and also the pile of ATC hearts I’ve finished so far, I feel a lot of inspiration to keep going on this resting project. The work itself inspired me to continue.

If you want to start stitching hearts on Artist Trading Cards yourself, you should sign up for the awesome Embroidery Workshop I announced this week. It is truly a work of heart…

Feeling the Love

I’m beyond thrilled that so many already signed up for the embroidery workshop, and keep signing up. Thank you! My own heart was so full of fear, that it took me way too long to gather enough courage to release this little baby into the world. It’s not perfect, it’s not even the best embroidery workshop ever created. But it’s made with love, and full of inspiration. It is from my heart to yours. Doesn’t that count for something?

Feeling the Fear

When I watched the workshop videos again this month, I nearly killed this little darling of mine. My heart is so full of fear. I berate myself too much for not doing enough, and then I’m afraid of doing anything. But it is 2018, and it’s time to stop being so darn afraid of failure, girls! And of criticism, of even of having some success. Sometimes I fear I’m afraid of everything. But I’ll be damned if fear will stand in my way this time.

Doing it anyway

So I released a workshop.

I decided to keep doing embroidery work of my hearts desire.

I decided to be brave, and tell my little heart to be still, and not beat so hard. Shush, little heart, let’s do it together you and me.

And now it feels so much better already. Yay!

I used to do a bit of embroidery almost every day, but now it’s been a while. I want to start it up again. But I know I don’t write too much about my textile work here, since I started this blog as a craft and mixed media art blog. I assume most of you are interested in those kinds of things more than textile art… But maybe I’m wrong? Plus I know that a few of you are into all things creative, like me, and maybe you’re already stitching a bit on your free time!? Or you want to know more about it? Let me know.

There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.
John Lennon

Maybe you want to give free-form embroidery a try this year with me? Don’t let any fear stop you! I hope you’ll at least consider joining my workshop, because embroidery is full of creative potential as well as moments of mindfulness and tactile bliss.

Just sayin’!

xoxo