Would you believe me if I said that embroidery can be strenuous work? Most people wouldn’t! But it can be – depending on the type of embroidery.

Lately, I’ve been working on some fairly intense embroidery projects. The kind that require concentration. The kind that require space in my workroom. The kind that are not transportable. I can’t sit and chat with friends or watch a movie and do them. In fact, when I’m working on them, I become rather anti-social.

But I like embroidery to be a social thing. I like to embroider around people. If I want to watch a movie of an evening with friends and family, I like to have something to do with my hands. I like to grab a project and take it with me on long car rides, or if I’m going somewhere that will inevitably require a wait.

For these situations, I usually have a few projects set up that I call grab & go projects, or “social” embroidery projects. Most of them are casual embroidery items that I give away.