My experience with yoga does not extend much beyond Wii Fit and similar DVD exercise routines (admittedly not practiced on a regular basis).

However, with all good intentions of exercising more during the winter months, I did something that is still referred to as: “I still can’t believe you did that!” Which is wait in line at Target (I was #3), before the store opened in the hopes of purchasing one of the 12 systems they had in stock.

Arriving at Target that early morning, I joined with a handful of other customers, most likely there to secure the scarce and coveted Wii.

At 7:00 AM, security guard and a store Associate promptly came to the door, and asked if we were there to purchase the Wii. When our intentions were confirmed, each of us were handed “Golden Tickets”and escorted as a group to the electronics counter to make our purchases. I was back home and my mission completed by 8:00AM! It was unknown that I had even left the house!

I’m leading up to the dramatic sewing part…

Based on the introduction to Yoga on the Wii, my daughter has been a regular practitioner of this exercise, attending a weekly class and often using a Yoga App or other online in-between.

As any machine embroiderer might know, any hobby, interest, affiliation or celebration is worthy to be championed by embroidered embellishment! So I just happened to find these Yoga Designs, and decided they would be *necessary* for my Embroidery Designs Collection.

A towel would be the ideal project for one of these designs! After all the pre-embroidery preparations, I was ready to get down to business at the machine. The first basting around the hoop/design was perfect and the first part of the design, the word “Namaste” was about to be stitched. About at the middle of the letter “m” the machine was very unhappy- noises, growls,- snap- needle breaks- re thread, re-start- things are sort of okay, but maybe not. The word was finished, it looked fine, so I continued through the color changes and completed the design. Flipped it over to see BIRD’S NEST behind Namaste. That will never fly. ( Didn’t mean the play on words, but it is none-the-less appropriate.)

The secret is never to unhoop until you are sure that the stitch-out is successful, so if you have to rip-out or “negatively stitch” something, you have a better chance of getting your design lined up properly.

Here is my design after ripping-out those stitches.

And here is the finished one

Ripping-out and re-doing is part of the sewing process. In fact, when the need arises, I find myself thinking about and planning the next steps in the project, etc. There is a mantra to this. I think it’s very “Zen”, sewing Zen.

Do you have a “Sewing Zen”?

Namaste