Pathways of stitches

Sometimes a piece of work gives you the language for itself.

Over the past few weeks I've been making The Keeper, a hand-stitched linen scarf. I thought I was simply using running stitch because it was familiar, quiet and uncomplicated.

Then I realised I wasn't really thinking about individual stitches at all.

I was watching the pathways they made.

Some wandered without purpose before finding a direction. Others returned to places they'd already been. Some crossed, paused or disappeared beneath another line before emerging again.

There wasn't a pattern to follow.

There were only pathways.

That small shift has changed how I think about the work.

The Keeper isn't about making perfect rows or decorative motifs. It isn't about measuring every stitch or deciding where each line should end before it begins.

It's about allowing pathways of stitches to emerge gradually over time.

I think that's why I enjoy working this way.

The pathway holds my attention more than the individual stitch.

It lets me respond to the cloth, to the day I'm having, to whatever quietly wants to appear next.

Looking back, I realise these pathways have been there from the beginning. They run through my paintings, Listening Fields, walking and paying attention to weather and landscape. Stitching simply became another way of following them.

The pathways simply change their form.

Sometimes they're painted.

Sometimes they're written.

Sometimes they're stitched.

They're still the same pathways.

I don't know yet where these pathways will lead.

For now, I'm content simply to follow them.