Thursday Thoughts, and a finish I can show!

I decided to finish this black cherry argyle into an evening bag for a good friend.  I personalized it with her initials, and I hope she'll like it.  As I was stitching it, I just had the strongest impression of HER on that fabric.  And this morning, I knew that I finally had to finish it and send it to her.

I was dreading placing this on Etsy.  I hated the idea of something that felt like BELONGED to someone else going up for sale.  So I decided to listen to what my heart was telling me.  This is different from the other 2 little evening bags I've finished.  Instead of a one-piece handle through grommets, this is a two-piece handle, finished inside the top seams.  Plus, I figured out how to make a twisted-cord bead toggle for a clasp.  I just need to fray-check the heck out of the loop, so that it will hold up.

So the idea of "listening to my heart" brings me to my Thursday Thought.  This friend and I met through Aloette, on a random phone call that was basically a wrong number.  Over the course of the last 3 years we have gone from colleages and team members to true friends.  I value her opinion and her wisdom, and she has done everything she can to encourage my creative spirit.  I remember about a year ago, when another Aloette colleage started sending out messages  about "What makes your heart sing?"  That was when I started thinking about finding away to express myself, to stop treating cross stitch and embroidery as just a hobby.  I know many of you know how this feels, you've blogged about it yourselves - the peace you feel, the release, the focus when you are in a project.  And also the distraction, even despair, when a project isn't going well.  I decided then that I needed to search for a way to let my heart sing, and since then I've discovered that, for me, it is stitching with a purpose.  Whether it is a gift for family members or a RR piece, if it's destined for someone else, I try to stitch with that person in mind, to make each stitch with love.

To Beth, I don't know if you read this often, but I hope you like your gift!  It's coming your way this weekend.  Thank you for 3 years of encouragement (it seems like I've known you much longer!), I've tried to tell you how much you mean to me, but there really aren't words.