(added Feb. 2011)
The following pieces posted in 2010 were actually worked on in 2009. Over the course of that year throughout the four seasons, I took photos of things that caught my eye in nature. I then created them again through free form stitchery using felt, floss, tulle, and beads. No patterns were used. I sometimes drew but mostly free cut the shapes. Most of the pieces are small (either 6"x 6" or 5"x 7") because the hand stitching was labor intensive and I would never have been able to complete very many had they been larger. However, there are a couple of bigger pieces up to 16"x 20". Mixed in with the stitchery are a few paintings and paper cuttings I did when I needed a little break from stitching for awhile.

A huge inspiration and encouragement throughout the year was my good friend Mary Petersen. While I took photos and stitched, she wrote poetry. We met once a month to share what we had been doing and encourage each other. Every season change, we brainstormed ideas. I would not have been able to complete so many pieces without her and I am grateful. We wanted to combine our work, but printing many images in color can be cost prohibiting and formatting poetry on blog sites can be frustrating. What eventually transpired is this blog for me and a self published book for her entitled: Espial: Noticings and Spottings by Mary VK Petersen available at Schuler Books or on Amazon.com. We hope you enjoy looking at our collaboration via this blog and her book.

(Dec. 2010)
Thanks to all of you for coming to look at this site over the past year. I hope it inspired you or brightened your day a little. It is a privilege to share my work with you.

May God grant you joy and peace in the coming year.
Blessings,
Cheryl

There's a song in the air
there's a star in the sky.

There's a mother's deep prayer
and a baby's low cry.

And the star rains its fire
while the beautiful sing,

For the manger of Bethlehem
cradles a king,
For the manger of Bethlehem
cradles a king.

-J. G. Holland

For everything there is a season,
and a time for every matter under heaven.
-Ecclesiastes 3:1

I firmly believe nature brings
solace in all troubles.
-Anne Frank

Nature does not hurrry
yet everything is accomplished.
- Lao Tzu

Keep your faith in all beautiful things;
in the sun when it is hidden,
in the spring when it is gone.
-Roy R. Gibson

Swinging on delicate hinges;
the autumn leaf
almost off the stem.
-Jack Kerouac

Nature will bear the closest inspection.
She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf,
and take an insect view of its plain.
-Henry David Thoreau

Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn.
-Elizabeth Lawrence

Earths crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone,
but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars.
-Martin Luther

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
- Albert Camus

Of rocks and trees of skies and seas
His hand the wonders wrought.

Don't believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is whose leaves return to the soil.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place.
-Annie Dillard

summer

All the way to heaven is heaven.
-St. Catherine of Siena

Living in the middle of beauty like this, we've no call to have puny ideas about God. ...His world is so fancy fine, so full of wonderment.
-Catherine Marshall

I will be the gladdest thing under the sun. I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay

In summer, the song sings itself.
-William Carlos Williams

There are two ways to live your life - one is as if nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.
- Albert Einstein

I am following nature without being able to grasp her. I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.
-Claude Monet

summer bounty (cut paper)

Life is full of beauty. Notice it.
-Ashley Smith

Never lose an opportunity to see anything that is beautiful. It is God's handwriting - a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

And this our life exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks
Sermons in stones and good in everything.
-William Shakespeare

The earth laughs in flowers.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I thank you God for this amazing day . . . for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes.
-e.e.cummings

Some people like flowers, give pleasure just by being.
-unknown

A cluster of berry siblings, all from the same stem-
Some come to ripeness early
Some linger back and absorb nutrients at a more tranquil pace.
They are all right on time in Your gracious agenda.

-Mary VK Peterson Espial: Noticings and Spottings