Good afternoon! I wanted to share my latest project with all of you. Please join me in welcoming these Figures of Inspiration…hand-embroidered pieces left in their hoops representing little moments of magic, science, beauty, and whimsy.
Figure #1 – A Fig
Figure #2 – A 6-Plumed Bird of Paradise
Figures of Inspiration are an outlet for me to simply make…a clean, unified series of canvases for my passing whims and brain exercises. A blank piece of fabric stretched over a hoop, to me presents endless possibilities.
The Handmade Classroom is a place where inspiration comes from every direction…from the smallest seeds to the largest planets…and the genesis of the finished toys and learning tools in the shop is always a little moment, a little spark of interest and fancy. I’m an abysmal sketchbook keeper–though I have approximately 40,000 journals and blank books that decorate my shelves, all in various stages of neglect.
But I think, as self-indulgent as these hoops might be, that they are a cathartic exercise (hand embroidery is a meditation for me, and always has been) as well as a kind of record of the sparks of interest that lead to the more polished and complete ideas you might find in The Handmade Classroom.
Plus, they make lovely handmade gifts for someone you know, someone you love, or yourself…you know you deserve a treat:)
As I release these pieces, I tag them (with beautifully handmade, tree-free paper from my dear friend Kelsey Pike’s Sustainable Papercraft Studio) with hand-written numbers and titles. And since I have this shiny new blog, all future installments of this series will be accompanied by a post sharing a little something about the moment of inspiration. Each is totally one of a kind, and will continue to appear in The Handmade Classroom as long as there are still moments to be witnessed, studied, and cherished.
Handmade by Aly Parrott 