How ‘The Magic School Bus’ Inspired My New Year-Long Embroidery Project

Week 1, a sloth

If you’ve been a Brown Paper Bag read­er for more than a year, you might know that I love projects with a set time­line. The #100dayproject is one of them. I’ve par­tic­i­pat­ed in #1YearofStitches (suc­cess­ful­ly, then not suc­cess­ful­ly twice). I love a series and I’m fas­ci­nat­ed by how things can change and grow and shift in sub­tle ways over a peri­od of time.

The last time I tried one of these projects was in 2021. It was #1Yearofstitches, in which every month I intend­ed to stitch a pet por­trait on an upcy­cled den­im jack­et. I made it to about March before I burned out. The lev­el of detail I was putting into the por­traits, along with my oth­er respon­si­bil­i­ties, just made the project too stress­ful to continue.

In the fall of 2022, I was scrolling through Poshmark—as I often do—and saw a cute den­im dress that I imme­di­ate­ly thought to fill with embroi­dery. 52 Weeks to Ms. Friz­zle was born.

 

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A post shared by Sara Barnes ☀︎ Hand embroi­dery artist (@brwnpaperbag_stitch)

What is the 52 Weeks to Ms. Frizzle project?

If you’re famil­iar with The Mag­ic School Bus (a sta­ple of my 90s class­room expe­ri­ence), then you know about the teacher Ms. Friz­zle, a true fash­ion icon. Inspired by her unique themed dress­es, I’m cre­at­ing a homage, of sorts, by stitch­ing a new wild ani­mal on my den­im dress each week for the entire year.

Week 2, a seal

How This Year-Long Embroidery Project is Different

The only time I’ve suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed #1YearofStitches was in 2017, and even then it was a chal­lenge. To make sure the 52 Weeks project doesn’t fall by the way­side, I’ve tried to sim­pli­fy it as much as pos­si­ble. This includes:

• Only stitch­ing one col­or (black).
• Keep­ing each design rel­a­tive­ly small in size.
• Required to share my progress only once a week (Sun­days).

Lim­it­ing the design to one col­or lessens the deci­sion-mak­ing for the project and also sim­pli­fies the ani­mal por­trait. Fit­ting 52 ani­mals onto a gar­ment is a lot, so they can’t be that large. And where­as #1YearofStitches is focused on shar­ing dai­ly progress, I’m only requir­ing myself to share a video of my week of stitch­ing on my Insta­gram and Tik­Tok. (Although it’s often more.)

Week 3, an anteater

So, how’s it going?

Good so far! I work off a sketch, and I start­ed the year with an excess of draw­ings. This has tak­en some of the pres­sure off the project know­ing that I have a stock­pile. But I’ve asked for sug­ges­tions on what to stitch and have got­ten so many amaz­ing ani­mals to sketch so I’ve cre­at­ed new draw­ings since then.

The first big test is com­ing in mid-Feb­ru­ary; I’m going on a four-day trip and won’t take the dress with me. I don’t leave until Thurs­day of that week, so my goal is to have the embroi­dery com­plete­ly done by Wednes­day (I typ­i­cal­ly fin­ish it on Fri­day or Sat­ur­day) and have the footage done to com­pile a video for Sunday.

Stitch With Me (Sort Of)

Because I start all of my embroi­deries with a dig­i­tal sketch, it lends itself to be a pat­tern that you can down­load and stitch, too! Check out my Etsy shop for down­load­able embroi­dery pat­terns of the ani­mals I’ve stitched. I’ll be adding them as I go along.

Week 4, a skunk