5 Questions with Creatives

5 QUESTIONS WITH CREATIVES KAYLEE ENNIS

BY ABIGAIL DENNEY

Kaylee Ennis is a bright, hilarious and talented person. The Pensacola native does embroidery work that is showcased on her Instagram, @ghostitches. Ennis’s creativity started with the fiber arts when she was younger. She would create Halloween costumes for herself and her friends. Now, Ennis creates beautiful embroidery pieces. Some of her most common pieces are stunning anatomical images of the human body. Whether it’s a skull, limbs or teeth, her needle can bring the beauty out of it. You can purchase her work on her Instagram.

When did you start doing embroidery? It seems pretty complicated; how did you learn how to do it?

I’d say like two or three years ago, I got really into cross-stitching because I had an office job. It was something quick and easy that I could do if I didn’t want to be productive at my job. Over a year and a half ago, I decided to try to do my own pictures instead of following the cross-stitched patterns. When I started learning how to do it, it was a mix of both trial and error and YouTube. At first, I was just using the stuff that was kind of similar to the supplies you needed but then you could see the stitches through the front of the piece of the fabric. That’s when I started googling and realizing that there are people out there that have it all figured out.

I see your work on Instagram is mostly skulls, teeth and limbs. Is there a specific reason why you do anatomy?

I find it very soothing. There’s something weirdly comforting about it. I tried to do flowers and so forth, but there’s not the same level of satisfaction to it. I can’t really express it very well. There’s just a certain satisfaction to seeing this thing that there’s a real representation inside of an actual person.

You said it can be frustrating and relaxing at the same time; what makes you choose to keep on doing it?

It’s addicting. It’s addicting to watch the progress and then finish a piece; you get a rush of satisfaction. Once you actually finish an embroidery and you have it in the hoop and see the finished product, you have a sudden boost of confidence. It’s just a good, satisfying feeling that you feel like you’ve accomplished something, so that’s part of it. I find whenever I’m not working on something, I’m not me. It’s like the Snickers commercial, “You’re not you, when you’re hungry.” It’s the thing that keeps me busy, so I don’t lose my mind.

Creating your own pattern for the embroidery must be challenging. What is your process? I determine how big of a piece I want to do, because obviously the bigger it gets the more detailed and the more time it takes. So, once I determine how big I want to go with the piece; I’ll get my fabric, iron it and then stretch it to the hoop and trace the design and add more. You have to have two layers of fabric, so there are two pieces of fabric in every hoop—at least that's how I do it. Once I trace it, I'll start stitching. Every now and then I have to touch up with the fabric pen because it is air soluble, so it

will start to fade out on me. I just touch it up a little bit and keep on going for days on end.

Where did you get the name, @ghostitches?

When I first started embroidering, I was reading Ghost World and I had a fabric pencil, so I’d written Ghost World on the fabric, but whenever I was embroidering, I only got “Ghos” onto it. I was so pumped and so excited, and I ran into the living room and I just looked at my girlfriend and was like, “Carrie!! Look at this!!” And she said, “Ghos? Okay I get it it’s Ghos by Kaylee.” So, for all of my crafts for a while, I would write “Ghos by Kaylee.” It was just a joke, but when I was making my Instagram, I didn’t know what to put as my Instagram name. Then I realized it could look like ‘stitches’ so, ‘gho – stitches.’ So, that’s how that was born, but it does look like you’re saying ghost, stitches.