Serendipity and English Embroidery...

Sometimes we're going about our daily life, and a theme emerges that smacks you in the face, and you know that you have to pursue a path -- why else would all events conspire to bring you to that one point?

To ignore the serendipity is to throw away the value and the opportunity that the energy of the universe has conspired to place in your path.

Allow me to explain...

This past Saturday, my good friend Carolyn came over to stitch and was all a-flutter about an embroidery exhibit she had gone to see in New York: Carolyn is an accomplished embroideress and her opinion is important to me so when she said it was absolutely THE BEST needlework exhibit she had ever seen, well...

Luckily, I had asked her to buy me a book from the show, expecting a small leaflet or something.

Well, what came was a BEAUTIFUL 300-page illustrated book of English Embroidery from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1580-1700: 'Twixt Art and Nature. And every piece included in the book is in the show!!! Not only that, when possible, the paintings of the pieces that appeared in portraits are being displayed along with the actual pieces. I love it when art, embroidery, books and nature all come together -- and POW!


Isn't it interesting that my friend Meghan aka Elmsley Rose, who is stitching and documenting her own Elizabethan Embroidery sampler, happened to review this book this week on her blog?

And then, OK, still my beating heart,Carolyn said that this piece is, by far, the most exquisite combination of stumpwork, beading and embroidery in the whole show.


And, the strange this is, Ullabenulla just posted about this piece here on Sunday (her blog is a "must read"!) which lead me to these captivating textile posts by Each Little World (another wonderful blog that combines, needlework, reading and gardening).

In a nutshell, I have no choice but to pursue this opportunity. I've got to run, not walk, to the Bard Graduate Center in New York before the show ends on April 12.

Luckily for me, I can find tickets as cheap as $8 roundtrip on the Megabus -- and Jim and Jack said they would go! And, I think we just HAVE to go to this restaurant to eat while we're there...don't you think?

Off to run and work on finishing my February BJP----