From Paloma Nunez-Regueiro of Three Kitchen Fairies, this story will be the first in a series of your embroidery stories. Submit yours by emailing me at Bari at BariJonline dot com.

By Paloma Nunez-Regueiro

My first recollection of an embroidery is my big girl's bed sheets. I remember caressing the satin stitches of the heart-shaped flowers that my mother embroidered with a floss in orangy shades on a set of pastel yellow bed sheets. Growing up I remember my mother stitching for long afternoons while my brother and I played in the yard. I always wondered what was that strange power that took her so far away in her mind... I was mesmerized by the embroidery patterns printed in tracing paper. She kept them by her night table, and from time to time I went to that place to unfold them and look at all the little flowers on the pattern, full of swirling little stems, and leaves.

 I was always drawn toward anything crafty, and colorful: from friendship bracelets to cuts of fabrics that I bought with my allowances. Around my tenth birthday I learned my first embroidery stitches; satin stitch was always the most difficult.

Time went by and my love for crafts and art landed me in college. I earned a degree in Fine Art from RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology in NY) I double majored in painting and printmaking. As soon as I finished studying I got pregnant. At that time I was warned about the dangers of painting solvents, and how printmaking acids and fumes could harm my unborn child.

 
I was happy for my pregnancy, and sad for my career as an artist.  I got slower as my belly grew larger; I had to look for something to keep myself busy, and kill some time from the long wait.

I looked in the public library for crafts books, and found myself  face to face with embroidery and all the memories of my embroidered bed sheets, and embroidery patterns of my childhood. My first embroidery at that time was my own design: little white ships on a light blue flannel baby sheet. I found myself embroidering in the same way as I would carve into a wood printmaking plate, in the same direction of the grain, with no borders. My fear for satin stitches made me use a running stitch that went up and down the ships' bodies filling the space with white floss. I was happy that besides the traditional stitches there was a lot of room for "free style" stitching. I also felt free to make my own patterns. Although there are many talented embroidery pattern makers (Follow the White Bunny is one of my favorites)  I mostly embroider  my own creations or I use pictures from the web to turn into embroidery patterns for personal use.

Embroidery brought me full circle into my childhood memories. I discovered the magic that took my mother's mind away while holding her embroidery hoop, needle and floss. I guess in my case (and I guess my mother's case too) embroidery gave me a space that I can control to perfection. Those first years of motherhood are quite uncertain and full of chaos. We can't fully control our lives, marriages and children. In the midst of that chaos I found that when stitching I could control the perfecting of the technique, I could unstitch and try again without harming anyone. I had the freedom to choose my pattern, and floss color, the stitches, the time to finish a project. Embroidery is that little grand place that saves us from the world.

The French knots came later, when my baby girl grew a bit, she asked to learn embroidery. We got her
the Klutz Embroidery Book, and we learned the French knots together. Hopefully the French knots will bring her full circle again.