The weeklong embroidery workshop I did the week of the 2025 inauguration was "Embroidery Magic", taught by Laura Tandeske. For those interested, there were optional readings from Sigil Witchery: A Witch's Guide to Crafting Magick Symbols and other books. Talking with Laura, it didn't take long to realize (unsurprisingly) that I'm oriented towards words and letters, and she encouraged me to sketch a sigil along those lines.

I ended up with something based on the word CHOOSE: a circle for the O and C, H splitting the shape in the middle, and an S and E on the two sides. Actually choosing, rather than just going along with the default, has been important to me in the last year, and how I ended up with the life I have now.(Arguably it's also easy to read the center text as "SHE", but opting out of that has been another choice.)

Yellow yarn on a green sweater with a circular sigil reading 'choose'

I'd picked up some sweaters from Goodwill with the thought of practicing embroidering with yarn. I decided on a chunky light green sweater for this, along with some leftover yarn from my girlfriend's scarf.

My first attempt at rendering it in doubled-over yarn with split stitch fell apart in the washer and dryer.

Yarn somewhat frayed after the wash

I reinforced the lines, and this time I wove in ends like knitting, rather than trying to knot them on the back. I ran it through again, and it's been stable since then through multiple washes after matting to the original sweater a bit.

I wear this sweater a lot now.