Welcome!

Hi! Welcome to "Adventures in Embroidery" - a bi-weekly blog about hand embroidery!  This is the first post in a year-long adventure in boosting my stitching skills and blogging!  Today, I'll start with a Q&A style introduction.  The real content will start Tuesday, January 12!

Where does the name "Adventures in Embroidery" come from?

In my hometown there was a teacher's supply store called Adventures in Learning.  When I was little, my mom would take me in there so she could get stuff for her classroom, but all I cared about were the cool puzzles and magnetic wooden train set they had for me to play with! (And, yes, of course it was for me. Kid Logic.)  As I got older, Adventures became less of a playground and more of a place of comfort and nostalgia.  The name stuck with me throughout the years, so when I began toying with the idea of an embroidery blog the name felt like a natural choice.  For me it was the perfect blend of nostalgia for days past and the excitement of the promise of adventures!

Who are you? And why hand embroidery?

My name is Morgan, and this (along with my floral blog) is my first adventure in blogging!  I currently live in Texas with my wonderful husband (who wants to be known as "Permanent Roommate" or "PR").  I started to get into embroidery a few years ago after I rediscovered a sampler kit that my Grandma gave me many years ago.  I had given up on it as a kid because I didn't have the patience for it.  Also, it looked awful because I didn't read the directions, and I didn't like to be bad at anything (jeez, what a brat... yeah, I know).  Fast forward to when I lived in Delaware and was too cheap to afford a TV and was convinced I could make it without one.  After re-reading my entire book collection, I got bored and decided to take a look at my old embroidery kit.  Y'all.  It was bad.  I wish I had taken a picture of how hilariously horrendous those ten year old stitches were.  So, I ripped them all out and started over.  Lo and behold, when you actually read the directions on something, you can easily learn a new skill!  And I was hooked!

The finished sampler that my Grandma gave me.

So what's the point of this blog?

I'm starting this blog for a couple of reasons:

1. It gives me a way to consistently and purposefully work on my embroidery.  Since PR and I got married, I've been needing a hobby to keep me busy while he's at work.  I have also discovered that I'm not that great at motivating myself to work on things and I get sucked into the Internet Machine all too easily.  With a regular blog posts scheduled, I'm holding myself more accountable to really working on this skill.  Plus, it's fun!
2. It also gives me a chance to develop my writing skills.  If you would have told me in fourth grade that I was going to start blogging in my twenties, I would have laughed at you (and also would have been very confused because blogging wasn't a thing back then).  However, in the last few years, I've really come to enjoy writing and I'd like to get better at it!  Blogging on a schedule gives me practice!

What can I expect from this blog?

I'll be posting on this blog every other Tuesday.  That means two posts per month (sometimes three - yay bonus posts!).  As of right now, I don't have a particular theme in mind.  I'll try to have a new finished product for every post, but if I'm working on something big it could get split up.  They probably won't be original designs, but I'll make sure to link back to the original artist so you can get even more information on their work!  I have a feeling that this blog will be evolving over time once I get my feet wet in all of this.  I'm fairly new to embroidery, so I don't know what styles or stitches I like yet!  But I do know that in each post I'll include lists of all the materials, pictures of my progress and final product, and a link to where you can find the patterns for the designs.

"Why only bi-weekly posts?" you may ask.  Well, as I shamelessly mentioned earlier, I'm also currently working on another blog.  I'll be posting about flowers over there on the weeks I'm not posting here.  This schedule gives me two weeks to develop the content for each blog.  

Phew! That was a lot!

Yeah, I know. I'm sure the rest of my posts won't be this long or wordy, and they will definitely include more pictures!  I'm super excited about this year's adventure and I'm so glad to have you along for the ride!

P.S. If you happen to be into flowers, too, check out my other blog "Floriography"!  This will most likely be the only time I cross-reference my two blogs on each other.  Also, this will definitely be the only time my posts on each blog are extremely similar, I promise!