Embroidering a Life
Embroidering a Life
By Kathi Caldwell-Hopper
“Jennifer’s approach is a combination of fun and funky, traditional and contemporary,
primitive but classic—it’s kind of hard to explain.”
“A brilliant combination of Jacobean and Bohemian, her artwork is a stunning example
of a lifetime’s love of this medium.”
Testimonials by a few fans of Jennifer Hubbard Alba’s embroidery
Embroidery has been called a lost art, a throw-back to the 1960s-hippie generation and a link to richly colored 16th and 17th century tapestries. For Jennifer Hubbard Alba, it is a way of life and something she is dedicated to creating for six to 10 hours every day.
Close up of embroidery details
Done with a fabric backing, embroidery floss and an embroidery hoop and needle, Jennifer’s creations are beautiful and whimsical. They invite one to enter an amazing world of florals and scenes and bright colors, all done in a folk-art style that is also tapestry-like.
“I have been embroidering for years,” Jennifer says. “I taught myself to embroider when I was 7 years old. My sister, who was a teenager at the time, owned some embroidered clothes and I love them. I was enthralled with the hippie movement back then and a lot of young people were embroidering denim jackets and shirts and other articles of clothing.”
Amazing embroidery covers a denim skirt
Jennifer was drawn to the beautiful colors of the embroidery floss (thread), which comes in many, many hues. With access to WGBH (public television) as a child, she happened to see a program featuring Erica Wilson, dubbed the “Julia Child of Needlework.” Wilson was showing how to do embroidery on the program and Jennifer was immediately enthralled. She bought an Erica Wilson kit and taught herself to embroider from a Wilson pamphlet. “I was quite motivated and if you want to do something, you find a way to figure it out,” Jennifer says when asked if it was difficult to learn the various embroidery stitches, especially as a seven-year-old child.
Jennifer lived with her family in southern Massachusetts, and while in high school, studied fashion design. Later, she studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts, and also modeled and was immersed in the fashion industry for a number of years.
Because she was around fabrics and great clothing, it was inevitable she eventually saw clothing embellished with embroidery. But all the work was done by machine versus hand-embroidered.
Jennifer knew she wanted to draw her own designs onto fabric ranging from jackets to shirts and other garments and items, and then hand embroider the pieces. She started drawing and embroidering clothing in middle school for friends and retail shops. “Embroidery is basically coloring with embroidery floss. You can draw something on fabric and then create beautiful designs with embroidery,” she explains.
Embroidered garment in progress
After moving to New Hampshire in 1989, Jennifer and her family were busy renovating an old farmhouse. She is an avid gardener as well as keeping horses and maintaining the farm. She does farm work each morning, and then spends her afternoons and evenings embroidering. “I am passionate about it; if I don’t get to embroider every day, I am quite miserable,” Jennifer laughs. “I get up early and tend to the horses, and then I can get to my embroidery projects.”
The dedication has paid off and she has had a lot of success, doing commissions for many years and now, designing and embroidering whatever project she wishes. “I use seven types of stitches and it isn’t terribly difficult to learn to do the stitches. But you have to be willing to practice to learn to embroider. In just one hour, I have taught a student to successfully do three stitches.”
While many people have felt a certain amount of cabin fever being forced inside during the pandemic, Jennifer has been able to carry on and get a lot of embroidery done. Each piece can take up to 700 hours of embroidery, and Jennifer gets lost in the process, happily working on a piece each and every day. “I like to have background noise when I am embroidering,” she explains. “I can’t watch a television show or a movie with subtitles because my eyes are on the embroidery. But I stream a lot of television for background. To sit and embroider in absolute quiet would be difficult.”
Lest one imagine embroidery is just a fun pastime for Jennifer, that assumption would be incorrect. She is a skilled fabric artist who sells her work at the Artistic Roots gallery on the Main Street in Plymouth, NH. She is an active member (and vice-president) of Artistic Roots and helps out a lot at the co-op gallery, where there are 40 artists displaying and selling their work. (She also was the co-founder of the Ashland Village Artisan Gallery in 2000.)
Embroidery on denim
In addition, Jennifer sells a line of embroidery kits and offers high quality printed versions of her embroidery on totes and home accessories. You can find her work at www.jhaembroiderydesigns.com.
While she can embroider on just about anything, Jennifer enjoys embroidering designs on demin. She does not plan out a design ahead of time, but rather studies the jacket or other garment, getting a feeling for the article of clothing. Then, with a permanent marker, she begins to draw right on the fabric. “The idea for the design just sort of comes out of me as I am drawing it on the fabric,” she explains. “It is a fun process; as I am drawing, my heart beats faster and I feel the creative excitement. The drawing part is quick, and even if I make a mistake, it isn’t a problem because the embroidery will eventually cover it up. As I embroider, I might add more to a design. The fabric, whether it is a shirt or other garment, is the blank canvas.”
Jennifer explains that her embroidery style is distinct and unique to her; she loves a tapestry effect to her work and is drawn to the colors of Moroccan and Mexican needle arts. “I just love folk art in general,” she adds. It seems these styles have always appealed and Jennifer explains that as a child, she visited her aunt in Maine. The aunt had a lot of very large tapestries in her home and Jennifer spent hours staring at the pieces, marveling at the designs and colors.
She is also drawn to English tapestries of the 16th and 17th centuries. These styles have all come together to influence Jennifer’s art to this day.
In her studio, Jennifer has a large worktable with tons of fabrics and thousands of skeins of embroidery floss, but she also spends much of her time embroidering in her living room with the all-important background noise of the television or music. All she needs is her embroidery hoop, fabric, floss, an embroidery needle and a good light source. “Doing this work…nothing makes me happier,” she reflects.
Although Jennifer has taught embroidery classes in the past, she is not doing so presently. Before COVID changed everything for so many people, she was working to prepare pieces for a show at a London gallery. The show has been postponed (due to the pandemic), but some of those embroidered works will be on display and for sale at Artistic Roots in Plymouth, NH.
For those who wish to try embroidery, which Jennifer says is a lot of fun and a great way to embellish an article of clothing as she began to do in the 1960s “hippie years”, all it takes is some dedication and basic supplies. It is a great project for kids and it is not messy. Also, embroidery is quite portable and offers instant color. (Indeed, Jennifer takes her embroidery along when she travels and goes to the beach or even when she attends a rock festival!)
The future is a place of beauty for Jennifer, who plans to keep making new designs and embroidering many hours every day. “I am just enjoying the process,” she concludes, embroidering a life of beauty and creativity.
To see a vast array of colorful embroidery by Jennifer Hubbard Alba, visit www.jhaembroiderydesigns.com. Find JHA Designs on Facebook or at www.instagram.com/jhubbardalba.
For information on Artistic Roots, visit www.artisticroots.com or call 603-536-2750. The gallery is located at 73 Main Street in Plymouth, NH.