Thursday, December 20, 2012

Inspiration: Emily Dickinson

&Stitches Inspiration


dickinson and thread


A week or so ago, Jessica Kelly of PaperStitch posted photos of an embroidered piece she'd finished involving an Emily Dickinson poem. I was immediately smitten and have gone back to visit it on Flickr several times. As you may know from &Stitches Issue 2 ("Books"), Jessica embroiders on paper, complimenting the written contents with her stitches. In this case, she's worked on a typed copy of an Emily Dickinson poem and has so beautifully captured the simplicity and grace of Dickinson's work. I just had to ask her to tell us about her inspiration for this project.

As it's the holiday season, I have been busy stitching up gifts for other people. I love this process: taking a look at a person I love and figuring out what they would like, and then making it happen. Once I had everyone else sorted, I thought it would be nice to go through this process for myself.

The picking of the actual poem was quite simple. This particular verse is easily in my top 5 Emily Dickinson poems of all time. It's highlighted and the page dog-eared in my complete collection of poems. I started out thinking that I would stitch some sort of anatomic heart on the page, but after some sketching settled on lines resembling veins. I wanted to suggest the Heart, but also a sort of geographic element, like rivers and streams, flowing through the Continent.

I really love how it turned out, and am extra happy that I get to wake up and look at it every day!

Julie is a knitter and stitcher, born in the US but now living in the UK. She loves vintage embroidery books and bad slasher movies. With her mum, Julie designs embroidery patterns inspired by literature under the name Little Dorrit & Co.

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3 comments:

  1. Indeed, this is lovely. Simple and inventive. I so admire her design sensibility. Thank you for posting it!

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  2. Thanks you guys! I love that you love it!

    ReplyDelete

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