I grew up in Colorado and was instilled with a deep love of nature by my parents and grandparents, my grandma was an avid sewer, knitter, and crocheter and passed that love of fiber arts down to me. I started embroidering in 2018 after attending a free workshop and haven't looked back! I've been extremely fortunate to have made a career for myself in the natural resources. I've worked at various national parks, national forests, and state agencies and have always found our public lands deeply inspiring.
“At some point I realized that it might be fun to start embroidering the National Parks!” -Kait Evensen
I made a few test embroideries of National Parks between 2020 and 2021, but it really wasn't until 2022 that I started putting a lot of time into the project! At this point I've visited 26 National Parks, and embroidered 17. While that seems like a lot to me, I haven't even gotten through a third of them yet! As I made and shared more and more of my pieces, folks started asking me about making patterns and kits so they could embroider the parks too. In the summer of 2023 I made my first embroidery pattern and have since made that a part of my routine for each piece. While the pattern making process has slowed my progress significantly, I love being able to share my embroidery knowledge with others and help folks make commemorative art for their favorite national parks! My patterns and kits can be found on my Etsy Shop.
This summer I was able to go on a 16 day road trip to various national parks, I revisited a few I had been to before, Sequoia, Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton, and visited some for the first time: Crater Lake, Lassen Volcanic, and North Cascades. I was able to take my embroideries for each park to the places that inspired them while also working on embroideries at my campsite each night. If you want to craft on the road, here are some things I learned along the way:
Get a clip-on book light to see your embroidery project at night. Headlamps start to give me a headache after a while, so the book light was a great upgrade!
Put all your embroidery stuff in a sealable box that you can easily find when you are ready to stitch (and that way your project doesn't get crushed during the general chaos of a road trip).
Use shorter lengths of thread if you are stitching in tight quarters like a tent to avoid getting knots.
If you have to fly to start your journey, get a small pair of embroidery scissors that will be TSA compliant so you can stitch on the plane too!
I'm not sure at what point this hobby of mine started to morph into something more, but it has been wonderful to see this art form that I love, and an art form that historically was labeled as 'woman's work' and not taken seriously, be so well received! I've served as an Artist in Residence at Olympic National Park and Rocky Mountain National Park where I hosted free embroidery workshops for park visitors. I am eager to find more ways to share the art of embroidery as a way to bring ourselves closer to nature!
Here are some tips to get you started on embroidering:
A lot of fabric stores have remnant sections where you can buy the leftover portions of a bolt of fabric for a discounted price, when I first started embroidering I would exclusively use fabric from these areas. Another place to check is at thrift stores!
You want the fabric in your hoop to be what is called 'drum tight' there are a lot of videos out there on the internet that can teach you how to set your hoop up this way.
I love using back stitch for outline work, french knots for foliage, and the satin stitch to fill in shapes.
DMC embroidery floss can be bought at most craft stores and is a lot easier to work with than other generic brands. The floss is composed of 6 strands, I will usually split off two to use for my embroideries
I try to share embroidery tips and tricks on my instagram account (@kaitevensen) and will also share on there when I have any in person workshops on the horizon. I'm always happy to chat about embroidery or nature with folks, so feel free to send me a message if you want more information, and as always, happy stitching!