Happy New Year! This is my favorite time of year. I'm a planner and love digging into everything I want to do this year. In 2024, I learned a hard that I don't have time for everything. Quite the revelation, huh? I reflected on it on my blog, Brown Paper Bag.
The TL;DR version is that my word of the year for 2025 is consistent. I want to return to doing what I love–writing and sharing the work of others and myself. That includes in this newsletter and on my blog.
Now, let's get to what you opened this email for: Orts 5/5 If you're new, that's 5 inspiring things and 5 ways to DIY.
Have a suggestion for the next 5/5? Reply to this email and let me know!
✨ 5 creatively inspiring things
1️⃣ Stained glass is often viewed in a religious context, but Soeun Lee has a different way of thinking about this timeless technique. With her background as an illustrator, she creates stained glass scenes of cozy settings—breakfast by a sunny window or the comforting light of a book and tea.
2️⃣ Items of discard are excellent raw materials for artwork. William KW calls his artwork “trash embroidery,” which utilizes thrifted objects, trash, and thread to create structured compositions. This one was made using parts from a furby.
3️⃣ One reason I love embroidery on clothing is that you can be playful about the placement of your artwork. Hiroko Kubota’s cat-in-a-pocket is a perfect example. The thread painting technique makes the cat look photorealistic, and the tail peeking out of the placket is a fun detail.
4️⃣ When is a tennis ball not a tennis ball? When it’s a paper mache sculpture! Continuing on with my everyday-objects-as-art theme I (guess!) I have going for this newsletter, Bernie Kaminski creates socks, hats, toothpaste, and much more from the material.
5️⃣ Janis Ledwell-Hunt creates work using macrame techniques often born from objects of discard. One of her latest pieces repurposes plastic ropes (which will never decompose) that she finds on the shore and turns them into art.
🪡 5 ways to DIY
1️⃣ Do you use a heat-erasable fabric pen to draw your embroidery designs? If so, grab your curling iron and watch this!
2️⃣ I’m not a knitter, but I admire knitting. But I do doodle, however, and I know how satisfying it can be to create something quickly. Pacific Knit Co. creates Doodle Card Decks that feature a variety of patterns and designs—from botanicals to Barcelona and beyond.
3️⃣ Have a box lying around? Turn that box flap into a loom and get to weaving. Here’s how.
4️⃣ I’ve only been skiing twice and I’m… not great. But that’s ok! I can be the best skier in the world—and you can too—with this embroidery pattern.
5️⃣ Here’s an easy embroidery technique that allows you to create dimensionality to a sweatshirt. Jenny of Flynn and Maybel shows how she uses puff paint to create a colorful “Hello” sweatshirt.
If you're in the Seattle metro area... I'm teaching a workshop on Saturday, January 18 at Make Apothecary in Bothell! I'll show you how to stitch my red panda embroidery kit. More details about the workshop are on Make Apothecary's classes page.
Talk to you next week,
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Sara Barnes
Embroidery illustrator and writer
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