what a perfect day
to stay at home
and do some sewing
or some reading and writing
and just chill
while the wind howls
and the rain pours
and the sky dumps all it has
upon our holiday house
sewing
December 8, 2025
kip playing with music
a whole set up here at our
kitchen table
and something in me wants to create
is it music?
am i ready to hear my own voice
echoing back from me
via vocoder at least?
or am i more in the physical scheme
and want to cut and trim and sew and see
what kind of creation i can make with
my own two hands
or am i finally ready to write that book
i’ve been threatening to write
forever and a half
or is it the video series
or a play
or silly skits
on social media
[probably not that last one
if my mental health is any key
or indication, having done so well
these past few months
without
that curse looming over me
via my phone…]
[who knows]
[who knows]
September 4, 2025
pondering
teaching
directing
improvising
trying new things
[and not too new new things]
and still
maybe
sewing
and writing
and reading
and playing
and flying
and learning
and living
February 24, 2025
quick morning pages this morning
perhaps even without posting
until the evening
because we got shit to do
this early morn’
[though i’d love to just be
sewing — apparently that’s my vibe
when the world gets to be
too big and too frightening
just do the physical
helpful labor
you know how to do]
April 7, 2024
i feel sick
i feel overwhelmed
i feel sad and worried and down
i feel uncreative and bored
and like there’s so much i could do
if my brain wanted to
but it really really really doesn’t want to
do much more than
video games
and tv shows
and sewing sewing sewing
October 18, 2023
the desire to simply
sew
stitch
embroider
do nothing with my time but extend the things i do with my hands
it is strong today
September 3, 2022
the heart wants
what the heart wants
but the brain and body can be
so
suspicious
lazy
resistant
ennui-ed
[a poem about why i’ve wanted to sew
for literal months
but haven’t done a stitch]
April 4, 2022
the pacing
of the pattern
is getting closer…
how did weeks of
inspired writing
followed by
existential creative despair
turn to days
to maybe hours now?
i’m losing concentration
faster than i’m gaining traction
and i just want to be able to stick to a day
and live it all the way through
without naps interrupting
or needing something to drown out my thoughts…
i keep having impulses to do things–
wanting to sew, but on the days i actually have time,
i sit down to a project;
it all feels so overwhelming
and at the same time meaningless.
it’s hard to battle the depression in your head
when it’s both a foreign invader
and your closest, best friend,
[and also, in many many ways,
just yourself.]
this poem is a mess
but so is my head lately
(and in an hour or two,
i bet you anything
i’ll be fine)
August 13, 2021
i wish i could find a *thing*
that helped me all the damn time
i have writing
until my mind is too scattered to make any sense of
the thoughts flickering in and out of my brain
i have embroidery and sewing
the fiber arts
until my hand is shaking so much
through an excess of energy
that it seems unintelligent
to have me anywhere near needles
painting could be my
saving grace
calming state
area of expression
but the minute i pick up a brush
i remember how bad i [think i] am at art
and the frustration comes back
ten fold
and i’m still at odds with myself.
[this would be the perfect time
to try to find
a meditation that works for me
but something about my agitation
makes remembering meditation
a near-impossible cogitation
but maybe
today
i will]
August 11, 2021
a few years ago
during a holiday visit with Kip’s aunt and grandmother
i offhandedly stated (while looking at the various projects and things around the room)
that, as a person who sews, i should have probably gotten into embroidery and cross-stitching
a long long time ago,
but i’d never even tried.
and there was a flurry of limbs, fabrics, and plastic bags
and out popped a cute little cross-stitch kit,
complete with thread, tiny beads, directions, and two extra pairs of small scissors, just in case.
and that started me on a new fabric arts journey
cross-stitch gave way to small embroidery projects,
which gave way to large embroidery projects,
still within kits
(bought by my gifts-as-love-language spouse for nearly every gift-giving occasion)
and i started to memorize the stitch names
experiment a little bit with colors and paths and techniques
and then there was a global pandemic
and everyone needed to stay at home
and everyone needed to find something to do while they were staying at home
and a ton of people got into the fiber arts
and i got…
contrary.
i knew it would happen.
i could feel it in my bones.
as more and more people started falling in love with this art i’d been falling for,
i could feel myself protective of it,
i could feel myself resistant to posting about it,
for fear folks might think i just got into it for lack of something better to do.
rather than be joyous about more and more people seeing the benefit of this older art,
i just got petty
and i tried and tried and tried to tell myself not to,
and i tried and tried and tried to enjoy folks who found it as a life-saver during this global trauma,
but i just
couldn’t.
but i also knew i’d come back
i knew it wouldn’t last
(my distain for newbies,
my silly gatekeeping),
so i simply stopped my project
and began to enjoy different arts,
i poem-ed
and painted
and film-edited,
and i did not share any opinions online
because there’s enough negativity on there [here] to last several billion lifetimes,
and because i knew it would fade
and i would be left with an even stronger community,
or simply with even more people’s projects to look at
while bored online
and of course, i did
(and with an even freer sense to experiment a little
when following the directions felt stale)
and i love looking at people’s projects from the depths of the pandemic,
and i now know this fact about myself even better:
i will be contrary at first,
but i won’t try to keep that gate closed
for very long.
kipventures 