Bio - Suzie Lee Henderson

Suzie is a multidisciplinary artist and educator specializing in fiber and glass arts. As a lifelong creator, she enjoys helping others discover the joy of making beautiful things. Suzie and her husband, Jesse, live on a farm in North Dakota, just west of Fargo. In addition to creating art, Suzie loves animals, spending time in nature, and reading fantasy fiction.

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I love being creative and bringing my ideas to life with color. I've never been able to settle on just one creative medium. I enjoy working with fabric and thread, but I'm open to exploring everything in the crafting world. I also have a passion for stained glass and will occasionally pick up a paintbrush, crochet hook, or tatting shuttle.

There are three themes I love to incorporate into my work: animals, nature, and magic. I enjoy a cottagecore, witchy aesthetic. Imagine a little cabin in the woods filled with books, plants everywhere, a crackling fire, and a few dark shadows lurking in the corners. A place that is on the edge of spooky but so warm and inviting, even the forest creatures can’t stay away. That’s my kind of vibe, and if it’s yours too, grab your needle and thread and pull up a chair.

My Journey into Hand Embroidery.

I grew up surrounded by handmade items, but I never thought it would be such a big part of my life as an adult. My mom, grandmother, and many of my aunts were talented makers and crafters. Both my mom and grandma enjoyed fiber arts like sewing, quilting, crochet, and hand embroidery. Among these crafts, my favorite was always embroidery, although I also loved drawing and painting. My mom was particularly skilled at hand embroidery, and one of her specialties was hand-embroidered dish towels. She often received requests for these and sold hundreds over the years. Before the internet became popular, if she needed an embroidery pattern and couldn't find an iron-on transfer that would work, she would ask me to draw one for her. That's how I got started drawing embroidery patterns.

As a young adult, I still loved embroidery, but with a full-time job and a farm to manage, I didn't have time for hand stitching. So, I purchased a home embroidery machine and fell in love with it. I played with machine embroidery for many years and learned to digitize my own designs.

Fast-forward to late spring, early summer 2019. I had a friend make my mom's headstone, and the weather was finally warm enough to set it. My husband and I decided to save some money and set the small headstone ourselves. I live on the east edge of North Dakota, but my mom's final resting place is on the west edge of the state, where I grew up. It’s about a six-hour drive from here to there. Since my husband would be driving, I decided at the last minute to bring something along to keep my hands and mind busy. I hooped a piece of blank white fabric and grabbed a very disheveled gallon zip-lock bag of assorted embroidery floss. I didn’t have a plan or a pattern in mind, so for the first few miles, I just closed my eyes. But in my mind's eye, I kept seeing a painting, a print of a loose oil painting of flowers in a vase that hung by the door in my mom’s favorite restaurant.

With nothing else coming to mind, I decided to sketch out the floral vase design. After many hours of stitching in the car and a few more at home, I finished the piece. Then, I added a date. This is the only piece I have ever added a date to, and I can’t say for sure why I did that.

That one embroidery project was the inspiration I needed to keep stitching. I knew then I didn’t want to stitch just for myself. I wanted to share my love of embroidery and show others how rewarding and healing hand embroidery can be. I started fresh with a new name: Wildflower Fox (the name is another story), and began teaching others everything I knew about hand embroidery.

I eventually went back to that restaurant and took a picture of the inspirational painting. It’s in the gallery below.

🧵Happy Stitching!