Now that I’ve given it away as a Christmas gift, I can proudly reveal my latest craft project. Here’s the backstory:

I drew my aunt’s name for Christmas, and knowing that she’s a creative person, I wanted to do something crafty and meaningful for her. First I looked up her name, Laurie, on some baby name websites to find the meaning of it. The definitions varied, but essentially it has something to do with laurel. Logically. Next, I searched for “laurel” on Google Images, collected a few I liked, and narrowed it down to this one, a piece called “Be a Laurel Tree” by Takano Saki:

From there, I sketched the image onto paper to enlarge it (I just did it freehand, which fortunately I’m able to do somewhat accurately. I didn’t know a better way.), then I re-sketched, very carefully, the image onto a piece of gray fabric. In order to embroider it, I had to divide certain larger sections into smaller ones—embroidery stitches can only be so wide. Then I selected five different colors of embroidery thread, ranging from white to black, and I set to work. I didn’t plan out the color placements, just figured it out as I went along, but I like the result:

I stitched in my “signature” at the bottom and the title on top, trimmed the fabric, stretched and stapled it to a piece of cardboard, stuck it in a simple silver frame, and voila! A meaningful and crafty gift for a wonderful aunt.

Only it wasn’t as simple as voila… I worked on this for a pretty long time, embroidering each stitch by hand. I embroidered while watching tv and movies, I embroidered instead of reading, I embroidered till my eyes and fingers hurt. But I loved it, it’s so meditative and relaxing. And I’m very happy with the outcome. I’m thinking of trying other names…once I regain feeling in my fingertips.