Keep Your Face to the Sun and You'll Never See the Shadows, is one of my favorite embroidery patterns. It was designed about twelve years ago for a young friend who had lost her mother to cancer. As she was trying to figure out how to make choices that each young adult gets to make, we would talk about this saying and that the "shadows" were fear and the "sun" was the love around her.
Last week the image of my original sampler for this design popped up into my personal Facebook feed at a particular moment when I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with worry about our current situation with Covid19. It was a sign and a message from my past and brought me comfort in the remembrance that we can get through any tough time by focusing our attention on love.
I am so happy to share this pattern with you at no cost. It is a simple stitch to make, the more primitive the sweeter the message looks. All of the letters are stitched in a simple Backstitch, and I purposefully allowed for my lives to not match to give it a more primitive look.
In addition to the lettering being primitive, I added scraps of fabric in an overlay method of Sashiko Stitching to look tattered, mended and loved. To add the scraps of fabric to the base piece of fabric, I used a little glue stick and glued the fabric in place and let it dry prior to stitching. I added rough dashes and x's to the patches and then stitched the sun and flower stems over the patches.
It is a simple pattern to stitch and helped my get me mind off of things. I often share about celebrating, dreaming and creating. Sometimes the creating comes first in just making something that is familiar like baking bread, or gardening, or simple no-thinking stitching! This is for you!!!
To get the pattern for this stitch, shoot me an email at tweetledeedesigns@gmail.com and I will send you the PDF for the artwork and the instructions for the stitching. My gift to you! I am also making up kits for the Prim Stitch version of this pattern complete with painted buttons and everything you need to make it. Just go to Our Shop to get your order in. I think I have enough fabric and goodies to put together 15 kits.
I hope that you have made it through another week healthy and hanging in there. There really is no magic cure to this situation for any of us, other than to focus on love, one day at a time. You are all in our prayers and thoughts. Elbow bumps and blown kisses. xo
