Welcome!

Hi there!

My name is Charyn and I see you.

I mean, not literally. Figuratively.

I started this blog because I wanted to share with you the healing power of simply laying down stitches when life goes sideways. Which seems to be every day these days. Women have been stitching for centuries, creating a space where they can express emotionally what they cannot say verbally because it’s just too much.

This happened to me (and billions of other people) while having a mental health crisis which started during the covid lockdown and was completed in 2021 with a full-scale nervous breakdown.

Undiagnosed C-PTSD trauma from childhood and the military came roaring up from the depths the first time I had to work from home. Before the 3rd day was even over, I could feel myself beginning to fracture and crack around the edges, mentally and emotionally. Maybe you did too. You may remember, even now, what it felt like for you. Maybe the cracks were already there, and worldwide drama made those cracks worse.

I honestly didn’t know what was happening. I knew I needed to do something with my hands to slow my downward spiral into insanity, so I grabbed a handful of scrap fabric, a needle, and some embroidery thread.

While I am a crafter by nature, I needed something that I didn’t have to think about, something that didn’t require me to follow instructions, cut anything to a certain shape or follow straight lines. I didn’t have the bandwidth for any of that crap. So, I just started putting random, mismatched pieces of fabric together and stitching them in place with embroidery thread.

That’s it. And I kept doing it over..

And over…

For the next 3 years.

The pieces I stitched (in a variety of sizes) would eventually become a visual representation of journal pages, except they would be bits and bobs of fabric scraps, held together with embroidery thread. Some of them have names. Most of them have dates. They were not stitched for perfection or to be aesthetically appealing.

They were stitched out of necessity.

They were stitched to give me a touchstone while my life and the world fell apart and burned.

Time went by. I kept stitching. It was the only way I was holding myself together. Even when I had to cycle into the office while the lockdown continued, my stitching went with me. Small, portable pieces that no one would really notice because nobody was there. Just a handful of us on site. Everyone else was working from home. And truth be told, I really didn’t care. Stitching became my lifeline.

In December 2021, 3 days before Christmas, I would be officially diagnosed with PTSD. But by then, the stress and strain of multiple life meltdowns of both mine and friends of mine, had already won the fight, taking down my mind, my body and my spirit. The diagnosis was just the icing on the cake.

I have struggled with mental and emotional health issues all my life. Anxiety, depression, anger, confusion, woundedness. I would use extreme busyness and distractions to cope at best. And overthink all of it and make myself insane at worst.

No other craft I have engaged in over the years has helped my psyche more than stitching. It requires presence. It lacks judgement. It requires being here in the now, feeling and listening to my emotions, no matter how crazed they are.

It would, however, take another 4 years to finally figure out the genesis of where my anxiety and depression came from. And through it all, I continued to stitch.

Sometimes the pause between pieces was long.
Other times it was short.

Sometimes I cried while I stitched.

Many times, I was emotionally numb. Some of my early pieces literally have blood (from stuck fingers) and tears stitched into them as I, and the world, broke apart piece by piece.

Stitching, in all its forms, is an antithesis to a world moving too fast, where we can’t keep up. Our emotional landscape is being neglected and answers to our issues cannot be found in digital apps and platforms.

Stitching gives us a place to put those emotions we can’t name and words we can’t find.

Stitching directly connects us to the past, to women who came before us, who used stitching to chronicle their lives when they lacked choice & power (which was often), used it to mark their grief and loss (also often), and lives lived out of their control (which was, you guessed it, often). Stitching let these women work through their emotions of grief, anger, injustice, helplessness and hopelessness. The same emotions you may be feeling today.

Bring your tea or coffee. Sit, sip and stitch with me.