The rabbit hole began when I saw the film Brodeuses. It’s a story about a teenage girl, Claire, who finds comfort and friendship in embroidery while navigating the challenges of an unwanted pregnancy. There is one scene in the film when she turns over her work that took my breath away. It was then I began reading and studying up on it; daydreaming about enrolling at Lesage’s school in Paris, and thinking of all of the beautiful things I could make with a lot of time and a some chainstitching. I added a tambour hook set and embroidery frame to my wishlist and let it sit for about a decade. Then one year my mother surprised me with a tension frame and my eldest goddaughter surprised me with a set of hooks.

At the time I thought that I’d begin practicing this embroidery technique right away, but several years passed before I gave it any real attention. I’m not sure all of the reasons why I didn’t begin once I had all the tools. I believe that while it was something I wished for, I decided that other things needed my time and mental energy more. I also didn’t have easy access to quality reference material but over the years I satisfied my interest by watching snippets of the technique that I could find on social media from design houses like Dior, McQueen, and Elie Saab and gobbling up videos from Shakeel FYM on YouTube to learn what I could.

Whether the style be in the Chinese tradition, French tambour, or Indian aari work I can’t get enough of hook embroidery. I have some low stakes projects in mind that I’d like to start soon to further my practice: an embroidered sleeping mask, a beaded/sequin patch, and an embroidered cut work shawl. I think I’ll begin the sleep mask soon.