Hello there! I’ve missed you!

I haven’t been doing much in the way of making things, but I’ve been travelling. Specifically, I’ve been visiting an old family home in Maryland.

An 1830’s structure with green shutters and a mottled stucco exterior, the house has been handed down for several generations, becoming a repository for forsaken objects. Dusty books molder in shelves and boxes; odd candlesticks share shelf space with 1970’s antiques magazines, and creaky cabinets harbor old porcelain pitchers, webbed with thin spidery cracks.

When I was a child I liked to linger over traces and fragments left by the ladies of long ago. There was a dresser overstuffed with feminine artifacts: tiny crystal perfume bottles with silver tops, hand-edged handkerchiefs, kid gloves, and a tiny envelope of golden brown curls, labeled “Adeline” in a looping and faded script. I don’t know what happened to these items, but on my most recent visit, I came across an embroidered petticoat, shown here.

Though the fabric is rumpled and yellowed with age, the embroidery is very much intact, with French knots, satin stitch and other elegant stitches I can’t name. The finely wrought flowers work their way up from a delicate scalloped hemline. White embroidery on the white linen, it is lovely and timeless work.

And it inspires me. Time to dust off my own embroidery supplies and try my hand at a new project. I’m thrilled to be back on this blog and look forward to connecting with you soon, dear readers.