Should we be more proactive about promoting a love of needlework, embroidery, and the textile arts?
You bet we should, so here are my 12 reasons to stitch every day.
- working repetitively with your hands helps promote good mental health and an overall sense of well-being – it’s a time to step out of our fast-paced worlds and re-ignite that tactile relationship we have with textiles and stitch
- it’s also a great time to problem solve and reflect on issues that cause concern – often by working with a needle and thread, your mind is taken outside those issues – and that’s the time you often find a resolution
- stitching every day helps set the foundations of a sensible routine – a course of action you can follow regularly
- and setting a routine is the basis for acquiring great stitching habits – something you do with little conscious thought
- getting your needle and thread out daily also helps promote productivity – it may be simple, small steps, but it builds day by day so the work mounts up
- it’s also a great way to inspire creativity – whether or not an idea works is not the point – the point is that you’ve given an idea breathing space that may successful, lead you in a slightly different direction or prove you need to go back and revise
- daily stitching is the best way I know to promote the motivation needed to go after ideas, hunt out information, and research historical or technical markers – motivation is key to most of what we do
- stitching is also a great visual outlet for our inspiration, our passions, and things we believe strongly in
- stitching daily is versatile in terms of the choice of techniques we can use to protest, inform, educate, form a community, heal, remember, or simply for our own pleasure
- stitching daily is the means of acquiring and polishing skills – something that takes time and practice
- daily stitching can become your business, offer an income or solidify culture and community traditions that need to be passed down from generation to generation
- but best of all, daily stitching grounds us with our ancient forebears and an unbelievable worldwide visual history
There are probably loads more reasons to stitch daily. If you can think of any others, I’d love to hear from you. Reach out via my Facebook page.
