This past Christmas I went to hear Ann Voskamp, Ellie Holcomb and Amena Brown during their Gift of Christmas tour. Amena Brown recited one of her poems and I was struck by the line “a pocketful of thankfuls.” So much so that I didn’t even hear the rest of what happened after that moment. I immediately went digging around for a pen and paper and starting sketched this image that just came into my head. I’ve been sitting with it since then and yesterday had the joy to actually bring that sketch to life.
I grabbed a 9 inch wooden hoop and all along I wanted to create the look of a snippet of a shirt or coat with a pocket. Then out of that pocket came little hearts floating out. These hearts are a few that I needle felted myself and mixed with some wool felt.
In my mind, it was the idea of sticking your hand in your pocket and instead of finding chapstick or pocket fuzz or any other ordinary things you might find in a pocket, you would pull out a heart. And instead of seeing that chapstick, you would see a point of gratitude for all the little things you carry around.
Because we all have them. We all have little ordinary things that we can turn into pocket’s full of thankfuls.