Joanne Sherman: Ditching the internet … or not

I’m about to begin a new hobby — embroidery. 

I got the idea from the internet, where I spend far too much time. This embroidery project is for a full year, beginning on Jan. 1. Each day I’ll stitch a tiny embroidered thing, maybe a snowflake or a ladybug or palm tree. Just one a day, like a vitamin. The object is to get off the internet and do something constructive, for cryin’ out loud!

If I stick with it, by Dec. 31, I’ll have embroidered 365 tiny things. How great is that?

I requested a beginner’s embroidery kit for Christmas and Santa delivered; however, I’m not really a beginner. When I was 8 my grandmother taught me a stitch called a “French knot.” It involves taking several strands of thread, twisting them around a needle, then sewing them into a knot, but much fancier than a regular knot, ergo, “French.” 

I embroidered my pillowcase with over 100 French knots, some knottier than others. It looked lovely, but sleeping on it resulted in a slew of French-knot pockmarks embossed across my forehead and cheeks. Sometimes now, when the light is right, I still see the indentations from those knots. 

Embroidery is the latest in a long string of crafty hobbies. I had a sewing phase that lasted several years as I zig-zagged my way through countless yards of fabric. One project was the cutest red plaid jacket for our two-year-old son. It was his Christmas outfit, and I nearly broke his little arm trying to twist it backwards and into the sleeve. It made for a darling Christmas photo, though, once he stopped crying. I do suspect that the incident may be the reason that he chooses to live far, far away. In another country.

I made the leap from sewing to stained glass after taking a class in Sag Harbor. The result was a heavily-leaded hanging lamp that pulled the dining room ceiling down. Sadly, I had assumed the house was better constructed than it apparently was. In search of an amber stained-glass lamp with two cracked panels attached to a big slab of ceiling? It’s in my basement. Right next to the easel, a relic from another of my artistic hobby phases. 

Bob Ross made me think painting happy little clouds floating over happy little bushes was as easy as letting my hair grow wild and whispering while painting. Despite a da Vinci-quality easel and a massive selection of watercolors, all I ever mastered were lopsided covered bridges over not-so-happy little streams.

The paints weren’t wasted. I used them to decorate a piano after discovering that I have zero musical ability despite six weeks of adult-education piano lessons. The fact that I have little control over my left hand and that we didn’t own a piano complicated the learning process. I practiced dutifully on a keyboard that I chalked on our kitchen table. Our round kitchen table. 

Eventually we bought a piano but by then I was over it. So I painted the upright asparagus green and stenciled orange tiger lilies on its sides. 

After selling the piano at a substantial loss, I delved into writing and had my first stories published in pulp confession magazines, a once thriving reading staple. Remember True Story, True Secret, True Romances, True Confessions? Guess what — not true. All of the stories were written by people like me with over-active imaginations and too much time on their hands. 

That confession-magazine genre, popular in the 70s, was considered “creative non-fiction.” Each “sin, suffer, repent” story had to have a thread of truth. But sometimes I really stretched that thread, as when I wrote about being a nun held hostage in a bank robbery. My thread of truth? I often went into banks. And though I wasn’t a nun, I’d been taught by them. Close enough!

And the story about being locked in a basement with a mad man? No stretch on that one — I had a basement and I was married, so there ya go! 

Interesting side note: Confession magazines offered about a quarter a word, or a few hundred dollars per story. Religious and inspirational magazines, about a penny a word, which was why I favored confession magazines. Sin still pays much better. But you already know that, don’t you?

Of all my hobbies and interests, writing is the one I’ve stuck with, probably because I’ve failed miserably at the others, including golf, macrame, wood burning and tap dancing. But I’m feeling positive and have high hopes about embroidery and I’m excited to start 2026 with a new hobby.

Turns out the first chapter in the beginner’s book is French knots.

I got this! (And a tea towel instead of a pillowcase.)

Author’s note: Instructions advise: “For more embroidery help, turn to the internet.”