Bitches Love Stitches may sound like a funny name, and it is, but it has always been personal to me.

Crafting has followed me through so many seasons of my life. I started stitching in high school, and one of the first pieces I ever made was a red 1966 Mustang convertible for my dad. That mattered because my first car was a red 1966 Mustang, not a convertible, that he and I rebuilt together when I was 14. I still have the stitched Mustang displayed in my office. Years later, after he passed away, I bought my own convertible Mustang, a 2011, and that thread between us is still there every time I see it.

Crochet connects me to my mom. She taught me how, and after she passed away at only 55, I found yarn stashed all over the house. That yarn felt like little pieces of her tucked into corners, waiting to be found. Yarn still does that for me. It brings her close.

And then there are stitches.

In February 2025, I had gastric bypass surgery. In December 2025, I had a lower body lift and breast reduction/augmentation/lift. What I learned, very dramatically, is that my body does not love stitches. Healing has been complicated, painful, and frustrating, with my body rejecting stitches and building scar tissue like it had a personal vendetta.

But while my body was struggling with stitches, my hands kept returning to them.

Cross stitch kept me sane through recovery. I stitched a bright, colorful stomach and took it to the surgeon who performed my gastric bypass. I made small projects for nurses, my driver, and my trip coordinator. In the middle of medical appointments, pain, healing, and uncertainty, making things helped me feel like myself.

I’m heading into another surgery soon, one made necessary in part because of the way my body has reacted to stitches and scar tissue. So yes, BLS is about stitching. But it is also about survival, humor, community, grief, memory, healing, and the strange comfort of making something beautiful when life gets messy.

Bitches Love Stitches is for the people who craft through joy, through grief, through anxiety, through recovery, through boredom, through chaos, and through change.

It is for the people with WIPs in every room, yarn in mysterious places, floss collections that got out of hand, and projects that carry stories no one else can see at first glance.

For me, stitches have been connection. To my dad. To my mom. To my body. To my healing. To the people who cared for me. To the version of myself I keep becoming.

That is what BLS means to me. me.