I’m blinking hard. The light is bright and welcome. I smile. Where shall I start? I reach for the canvas bin and all my pretties…

This has been my February: emerging from a five-year writing binge, still preoccupied with the many stories I have yet to finish. However, I know I need something different. Suddenly, the urge to stitch strikes me. I experience a moment of panic, but then I remember that dozens of kitted-up projects survived the great purge of 2025 – that strange year (yeah, it was only last year, but it feels like a lifetime ago) when I felt compelled to clear space in my 10×10 craft room for life’s unexpected challenges.

My cancer treatments are behind me now, the world is even crazier, and living in it requires creative survival tactics. I’ll call it revitalization. The joy I’ve found in stitching over all my decades calls to me again, urging me down that rabbit hole of bliss in mindful handwork – all the color, texture, and wonderful redefining rhythms of pulling a needle filled with vibrant silks and cotton through scrumptious fabric.

From late 2018 through 2021, I was part of the stitching community on YouTube known as FlossTube, an outgrowth of BookTubers who love to stitch. The channels multiplied as even the shiest stitchers came out of their craftrooms to share their passion through video. Watching these women and men from all over the globe, living all the diverse lives, talking about the huge thing we all have in common, and sharing their progress, is surprisingly addictive… and highly enabling – and the craft supply hoarder part of me went wild. So did many new designers. Careers were launched, dreams were made.

Sitching while listening to books was how I got started writing at the end of 2020… but that’s another story.

I’m so excited to return to this world on YouTube, finding so many old favorites still at it and still working on some of the same BAPs (Big Ass Projects), many of them the same ones I’m trying to finish. Nope, it’s not a lonely craft. If you check it out, you’ll discover that for yourself.

My challenge now is to balance time for crafting (including knitting and crocheting) with time for writing novels. I’ve got nine, yes, nine stories in the works. I’ve always been, and always will be, a multi-crafter, serial starter, and steady finisher. Lately, I’ve focused on finishing short stories for anthologies, but those novels keep on developing…

Want to see some of what I’ve been doing this past week? Because I must share. 😍 I stitched on 13 projects, making really decent progress, and even finished one last night! I plan to finish another one in February. As with my novels, I’ll keep you posted throughout the year.

I did get a finish done last year, which I adore. Monster Whale by Owl Forest Embroidery. It still needs framing… so you get my chihuahua for now.