The Gift of Harikuyo

This morning of Harikuyo, I awoke to a gray day.  Today is the day that I take the broken needles from the back page of my needlebook and lay them to rest.

My needlebook was waiting for me right where I had left it.

It gets used quite often so it can get pretty messy and disorganized over time.

I use that little pocket in the front to hold curved and super-tiny size 16 beading needles that would bend if placed in a page...

Just like last year, I placed my broken needles in a soft cottonball cloud...

Only two this year and both were beading needles.  One of them is burned, poor thing.  For the life of me I can't remember how...

I wrapped them in old pattern paper and placed them in the ground with a note of gratitude and a prayer for the future.

Fittingly, I buried them with the rose bushes this year because I could really use some help making Mrs. Rose's rose bower.

In particular...thorns...

Not sure yet how I'm going to make three-dimensional thorns for my roses so I'll take all the help I can get.

As I mentioned last time, I'm going to make a new needlebook.  Probably has something to do with that  Planning Fallacy problem I wrote about the other day.  I have a bad case of it.

What I did manage to do was pull together the books I have on Mrs. Delany.  She's my design inspiration for my needlebook.  And I settled on this image as the design I'd like to use for the cover.

No surprise that it's a rose.  I've got roses on the brain lately.

I wasn't stitching this morning.

Instead I awoke with a profound sense of gratefulness for all of you who have embraced the idea of honoring your needles.  There really are hundreds of you who have taken the course, bought labels, shared the tradition with groups of friends.  It's quite beautiful to think that by writing a blog, one idea could catch on.

Along those lines, I've been reading a book titled The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde.  It's hard to describe the full scope of this book; a fact the author readily admits to in the Introduction.

Ultimately it describes a problem -- the disconnect between the practice of art and common forms of earning a living.  The first couple of chapters deal with the concept of gifts in myth, in fairy tale and in history.  He gives example after example of how gifts are powerful, that "lifelessness leaves the soul when a gift comes toward us". 

A work of art itself is a gift:  it contains the the vitality of the artist's gift within the work and makes that gift available to others.  "Works we come to treasure are those which transmit that vitality and revive the soul.  Such works circulate among us as reservoirs of available life".   

I love that phrase, reservoirs of available life.

He relays many instances of gift exchange both in fairy tale, myth and in native cultures.  And one idea has struck me the most.  In all the stories, the gift has to keep giving.  It has to keep moving.  If someone commodifies a gift by selling it...or takes it out of circulation to keep for themselves alone...then the gift ceases to be a gift.

Which leads me to today.  

I believe that the idea for this needlebook was given through me as a gift; and all of you who have supported that gift by buying the class, kits or labels...allowing me to cover my costs and do what I love.  But a part of each transaction remains a gift.  Something more has happened beyond the mere buying and selling of products  And that something more should move on in the world and continue to give.

In honor of each one of you who have adopted this needlebook, this soulful approach to your needles, I have made a donation to Friendship Bridge.  

Friendship Bridge's mission is to provide microcredit and educatioon to Guatemalan women so they can create their own solutions to proverty for themselves, their families and their communities.  Many of them do that through traditional needle and textile arts.  Check out their website here or follow them on Facebook here.

Take a moment to watch this and you'll see what I mean.

Thanks to you, we just might transmit some vitality and help to revive the livelihoods of a few women in Guatemala.

"Only when the increase of gifts moves with the gift may the accumulated wealth of our spirit continue to grow among us, so that each of us may enter, and be revived by, a vitality beyond his or her solitary powers."

I'm looking forward to sharing this day by visiting your blogs or seeing your pictures on instagram or Facebook.  If you'd like, add your name and link in the Mr. Linky widget below so we know where to find you:

Here's to another year where we get the chance to stitch and to break some more needles.

Aren't we lucky?

Two Days until Harikuyo 2015

This Sunday, February 8, 2015, is the celebration of Harikuyo, the Festival of Broken Needles.

As many readers and needlebook course graduates know, Harikuyo is the day when the needleworkers of Japan take their used and broken needles to the shrine to respectfully put them to rest.  

I've written about the festival many times so if you're new to this blog, feel free to read more about the festival here, here and here.

I've been observing Harikuyo since 2011 when my BNF and Japanese-Embroidery sister, Carol-Ann Conway, posted about the festival on Stitchin' Fingers.   That year, I heeded her call to honor our needles in some way by making a special needlebook.  

It had 10 pages, one page for every type of needle I use, and a needle felt on the back cover for storing needles and pins that break throughout the year. 

Many of you liked the idea so I went on to make a pattern, create an online course, and sell woven fabric labels to sew onto the pages.  Since then, hundreds of you all over the world have made needlebooks...which just amazes me.

My original needlebook has rarely left my side.  It's one of my most treasured tools;  I use it as often as I do a pair of scissors.

This weekend, in honor of my five-year Harikuyo anniversary, I'd like to make a new needlebook.  

I'm not sure if I will finish it but I will at least start.  For some time, I've been wanting to make a modern etui of needlework tools that I use frequently in my needling life.    So...nothing like a holiday to get me motivated.

Which leads me to you.  

Would anyone out there like to join me??  Maybe you enrolled in the course and started but haven't yet made the book?  Maybe you need a new needlebook?  Or maybe you just need to organize and spruce up the one you already have.  I would love to hear stories about how you use your needlebooks and what it has meant to you.  Or, more simply, see just a photograph of your needlebook on your worktable or in its characteristic place.

Never thought of honoring your needles?  It's never too late or too early and what better opportunity than the festival this Sunday!  There's no goal or time limit, you can choose to play or not, or maybe just find a moment to honor all your tools that help you in your work. 

I will post my observation and needlebook progress on Sunday (not too early...how about Noon EST?) and will set up Mr. Linky on the post so we can visit your blog if you have something to share.  It will be a needle party!!

To help you along, I've re-stocked the needle labels in my Etsy shop.  Based on user feedback, I replaced the "Sashiko" label with an "Etcetera" label.  Turns out that not many folks use a Sashiko needle in their daily life (*WhAt??*)...Etcetera gives you the option to add specific needles such as felting, doll making, etc...

That means if you have a set of the original labels, consider it a limited edition!!

Additionally, I am parting with the original needlebook I made as a class sample...It's for sale in my Etsy shop as well.  There's only one...with the now out-of-print, original Sashiko page...  The needlebook has been sold.

Happy Friday everyone!  I hope to see you on Sunday for Harikuyo!

Harikuyo 2014

Today, February 8, is the day of the Harikuyo Festival in Japan.  

The day when kimono makers, seamstresses, quilters and embroiderers go to a shrine with their used up needles to properly lay them to rest.   "Hari" means needle and "kuyo" means memorial service and for the last few years, I have been honoring this festival by holding my own personal harikuyo.

To my great delight, many of you have joined me.

This year I have only four broken needles in the felt on the last page of my needlebook...

But even though there are only four, it is the first year that a Japanese embroidery needle has landed in the burial group.  In fact, I don't ever think I have broken a Japanese needle since I started Japanese embroidery many, many years ago.

That means that the needle that is second from the left below has been in my Japanese needle felt for over 20 years...

That's a long time.  It's also kind of interesting that this is the year when I've put Japanese embroidery back on the front burner.  

In fact, in April I will be starting a piece called Queen of Flowers, its subject being the Chinese Tree Peony.  It also happens to be my favorite flower. 

In Japan, broken needles are placed in a block of tofu...something soft that relieves the needles from the harshness of their labors.  This year, I chose a soft and fluffy cotton ball.  

I wrote a note of gratitude and folded the needles into an old scrap of pattern paper...

And buried them amongst the tree peonies in my garden...

Wishing that the spirit of my needles will combine with that of the tree peonies and inspire and guide me through my embroidering of this flower later this year.

Even though it's still freezing, I can see that the tree peonies are beginning to bud.  Jim told me this morning that he sensed Spring was coming because he was already beginning to sneeze.

I didn't believe him then...

But now I do.

We spend this day not only honoring our needles for their service but also by being grateful for the skills that we've acquired over this past year.  The more hours we spend with a needle in our hands, the better stitchers we have become.

Likewise, so much of the time we spend with our needles is meditative.  We are thinking of our family and friends, we are suffering from grief or the loss of a loved one, we are joyful because of a wedding or a birth...all of these emotions that travel from us through the needle and into our embroideries are honored as well.  Pray that sadness and anxieties are laid to rest along with your needles and that any joy and happiness is retained with you.

So many of you have made Harikuyo needlebooks in the past few years.  I'd love to hear how they are working out or how you may have chosen to honor your broken needles this year.  Just leave a comment below and let us know.

For those of you who are new here, you might be asking "What is Harikuyo?"

Check out these prior posts on the Japanese tradition:

Preparing for Harikuyo...trip to Japanese shrine

My Original Book of Needles

Needlebooks Multiply in 2012

Harikuyo 2012

Harikuyo 2013

Spring is coming everyone.   Jim says so and I think his nose is even more reliable than Punxsutawney Phil.