That Big Kid Ellen #57: Make an embroidery project
Admittedly, I might have only ever completed approximately 0.79 embroidery projects as a kid so it’s a little bit of a stretch for this task to end up on the list. However, I remember having had a decently enjoyable time doing it, and I wanted to see if completing one as an adult would spark a further interest in sewing/knitting/etc. in a greater capacity.
It did not.
But, it was fun to complete this time around for various reasons, and it brought up some serious nostalgia since some of my favorite memories from childhood were made at a JoAnn Fabrics (#NotAnAd) with my mom at the beginning of every October.
My mom is an incredible seamstress — out of necessity. She grew up very tall, just like me, and was unable to find clothing that fit her (sounds familiar). She had to make her own clothes from patterns that she would buy from fabric stores and her skill developed into something that her friends and family were always in awe of. When she became a mom, she started the tradition of hand-making all of my Halloween costumes. And woweeee, was she good at it.
When I became old enough to choose what I wanted to dress up as, we would go to JoAnn’s together and make our way to the back of the store where they had plastic tables set up with that year’s giant pattern books from McCall’s and Simplicity. We’d quickly flip to the Halloween costume section, usually somewhere in the second half of the book. I would point out costumes that I liked, trying to pick between multiple options every year, but usually choosing something extravagant and frilly and timely to whatever my interests were that year.
Once we had a costume in mind, my mom would walk over to the enormous filing cabinets where the pattern packets were kept. Once she found the one that I wanted (don’t get me started on what happened if they were out of my chosen pattern *crocodile tears*), we’d open it up and figure out which fabrics we needed and how much of each. This is where the fun really began for me.
The fabric section beckoned, full of endless possibilities. Sure, the patterns usually suggested colors and fabric types, but I knew that my mom would give me some creative freedom to choose the palettes and textures that were exciting to me. Although, I went through a long orange-is-my-favorite-color phase, and I’m really thankful that didn’t show up in my costume choices…
I would walk up and down the aisles with my arms out, parallel to the floor, and would allow my fingers to drag across each ream of fabric, stopping abruptly when I came across something soft. My eyes scanned simultaneously with my fingers in search of patterns and designs that I thought would make the costume pop. I could search for hours before finding the perfect fabric to make my costumes dreams into reality.
(Quick Adult Ellen note: I like that this method of choosing fabrics is now how I choose my clothes. I’m such a sucker for soft fabrics, and I now primarily shop for clothes based on creamy textures — I even have a favorite pair of leggings that I call “butter pants.” I also do not shy away from bold patterns, florals being my favorite. I have a current goal of adding even more color to my wardrobe.)
Once I had landed on the winning fabrics, we’d take them over to the cutting tables and my mom would measure out what we needed using a yardstick glued to the counter, and an employee would hand us the little receipt saying how much of each fabric we had cut. I would leave the store so eager to see the final product that I would try to convince my mom to start sewing right away.
When we got home, she’d measure me and lay out the patterns on top of the fabric, pinning them into place using sewing pins sticking out of a tomato red (and tomato-shaped) pin cushion that she would wear on her wrist. This was my least favorite part of the process — I would show up at the end when she was doing final measurements.
Every single year, she created something magical. She made costumes for my sister and brother as well, regardless of their requests, and I could tell it broke her heart the year that I became “too cool” to wear her homemade costume (it was in 7th grade and I chose a giant button costume for some reason). She now has an entire scrapbook dedicated solely to Halloween costumes over the years (read more about here scrapbook obsession here).
Embroidery projects are a smidge different than sewing an entire costume, but I will say something about the process of finding a pattern — shopping around on Etsy (#NotAnAd) was probably just as fun as going to JoAnn’s. Etsy is pretty incredible for all things creative, and I hadn’t really spent a lot of time on there before this project. But it literally has anything you could imagine and it really excited little kid Ellen to see that she could relive some of those fabric store moments, feeling endless possibilities opening up in front of her.
Want to stitch some flowers? Thousands of options. Want to stitch some swear words in cursive? Bam — hundreds of options. Want to stitch some flowers and swear words together? Now we’re talking.
I chose an all-in-one kit and was pleasantly surprised when it even came with a little booklet on how to complete all the different stitches. The process was pretty straight forward, and I saw myself improving rapidly over the course of just a couple hours. I loved that I could work on this little project while binge-watching my garbage TV at night (oscillating between the Real Housewives of Potomac and Below Deck, iykyk). I felt accomplished when I went to bed instead of a trash human who enjoys judging people on TV while simultaneously doom-scrolling on Instagram.
And the end product was truly great. A little messy, but pretty adorable. I know I mentioned in the beginning that I hoped this would stem an interest in sewing or knitting or something similar, which it didn’t, but I would definitely love to get a couple more of these embroidery projects in the future to keep my hands busy in the evenings. After so much TV during quarantine, it’s nice to feel like you can create and rot your brain at the same time.
