Like many others, in recent years I became very interested in hand stitching and visible mending.

The bold addition of line and pattern from hand stitching can really enhance textile projects.

Mending clothes in an artful way gives them a more sustainable life and will less likely end up in a landfill.

This type of embellished repair harkens back to my days of lovingly embroidering and patching my jeans as a teenager in the 70's.

While exploring visible mending I read a few books on boro mending. Boro is an ancient form of Japanese clothing repair that involves securing a piece of fabric over a hole or tear in a garment with rows of running stitch. Several of these books also included instructions for mending with Sashiko style geometric designs for patching clothing that also inspired many repairs.

Although I admire the design and technical skills used in Sashiko, I really find myself drawn to the basic running stitch. The running stitch is sewing in its most primitive form with no special skills needed, it's something everyone can do, and it is universally found in every corner of the world. It's just what you do with it that makes it unique and can elevate it to another level of artistry.

After mending everything in my closet, I looked for other items I could embellish with simple embroidery stitches. I liked the idea of refashioning my relatively inexpensive wardrobe to one that was more interesting and artful.

My simple black OTIS art school t-shirt begged for embellishment.

Simply adding a running stitch to a collar or button placket can elevate a garment to designer level.

I even used decorative stitching to alter the shape of a few overly boxy shirts by stitching +++ rows of pleats into them and decoratively stitching the yokes.

As I stitched these linen shirts I grew more and more intrigued with potential stitching possibilities.

The ease and simplicity of the basic running stitch is very appealing because it lends itself to creating so many beautiful designs and textures without needing years of skill to finesse.

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In January 2020, I needed a project to occupy my down time while traveling on a 5 week teaching trip to New Zealand.

I decided to pack a zipper pouch filled with different shades of blue embroidery floss, a chalk pencil, tiny scissors, embroidery needles and a scarf length piece of navy blue linen.

This was a project well suited for working in a compact space while sitting on a plane.

My idea was to use improvisation to stitch patterns into the linen letting my surroundings inspire the design.

Wow, did I feel inspired!

This turned out to be the ideal travel project, because it was compact and didn't require a lot of supplies, it wasn't messy or need any set up, and most importantly I could work on it for long or short periods of time while on planes, busses, trains, cars or sitting on a park bench.

By the end of 5 weeks I had stitched a scarf inspired by rolling hills, mountains, clouds, water, waves, rowing paddles, DNA and vegetation.

We flew back to the US on March 3, 2020 as the reports of a rapidly spreading virus filled the news. A week and a half later when we were asked to shelter in place I figured I would spend the time filling in the background of the scarf with dark blue floss, assuming the pandemic would be over in a few weeks.

I liked the heavily stitched texture of the finished scarf and found that the more stitching I added the softer the linen became, giving it a lovely drape. After I had stitched every inch of that blue linen my hands itched to do more.

Stitching became a great way to distract myself and pass the time. It was relaxing, in a time of unprecedented levels of stress.

I had a piece of dark orange linen that I had bought to stitch on a teaching trip to Australia in July that clearly was no longer going to happen, so I pulled that out and started stitching it using only warm colors of thread.

I stitched branches coming in from the edges of the fabric in dark reds and burgundy, then filled in the background with echoing lines of stitching in yellows, pinks, oranges and reds.

I also added a few covid molecules in the center of the scarf to historically record when the scarf was made.

By the time I finished the second scarf more ideas were swirling in my head that I wanted to explore.