Sometimes sheer boredom can ignite one’s latent talents. Take the case of Michelle Staub. According to her, she was feeling listless and uninspired during the summer months and decided to take up embroidery. And once she took it up, she fell in love with it instantly. Today, she creates such exquisite embroidered pieces of pets that they look as real as photographs.
Although Staub started with embroidering portraits of video game characters, she soon switched to more challenging subjects. She chose to embroider the favorite photo of her cat named Purrl and the result enchanted her. Since then she has continued to hone her embroidery skills for creating perfect and life-like pet portraits.
On mymodernmet.com, Staub states, “The main thing that drives me to keep improving is that I want my pet portraits to look as realistic as possible. I like the challenge of only using thread to capture the pet’s features and represent their likeness. I see ways I can improve with each portrait I make and try to apply that knowledge to the next one.” What she has achieved is testimony to the fact that with enough dedication, one can become a master of one’s chosen craft.
Once Staub achieved expertise in embroidery, she established Stitching Sabbatical, her website where customers can place orders for their pet portraits. All they need to do is to send her two to four images of their pet for her to work with. She doesn’t frame portraits but sends them on a hoop. She also doesn’t do portraits on customers’ clothes.
Staub’s hands remain full since it takes anywhere between 40 to 50 hours for her to hand stitch a single portrait. There’s always a queue of orders, so she cannot give a specific date for completing a particular work. For completion by a specific date, she charges extra. She ships internationally and includes the shipping charges in the price of the portrait.
People simply love what Staub does is evident from the number of viewers on her Instagram page that number over 144,000.
Michelle Staub