Tangled Up In Knots

Yesterday I was adding the Disco Fiesta Instax Photo Holders to the new website, and I had a thought….

I need to make some special photo holders, y’all can give your sweethearts for that holiday coming up, St. Something Day. 💘

❤️‍🔥This Monday I’m adding this hot tamale to the website and perhaps a pretty in pink one too. ❤️‍🔥

Tonight 2•2 is .us Smitten group show from 6-10p. I have a piece in there as well as so many other great artists. I’m so excited to see the show all set-up with everyone’s art!

Lastly! The 🧿 circle weave collection is live, and I still have the two smaller hoops available. 100% of the collection profits goes towards an action for Palestine. 🍉

The glorious, magnificent, sun is out today dancing with her rays!! 🌞❤️‍🔥💃🏽🪩🌞
Anyone else just stand outside with their face towards the sun for awhile?!

The 🧿 circle weave collection drops tonight at 8pm eastern on my new website!

I’m adding this s**g disco planter hanger on the website today, and I am working on getting all current inventory up by mid-February. After that, I’m going to start dropping pieces at the start of each month to curb against forgetting to add new pieces online.

🧿 Collection Drops Thursday, 2•1 8pm Eastern 🧿

I’ve made 🧿 circle weaving in the past, but this one is special. I wear an 🧿 necklace everyday, and the beads on it are from a broken bracelet, I’d bought in Hebron, Palestine. When the bracelet broke, I kept some beads and had it restrung onto a necklace.

This collection is for Palestine

The full profits of this collection will go toward an education/action for Palestine. 🍉 I know what but I can’t share the full details publicly, but if you are interested in giving, I can privately share more about it.

This new collection will debut on my new website I’ve been working on for a good month. I decided to move from Square to Shopify. It’s still a work in process, but I am proud of how it’s shaping up. I am hoping to get all my stock added by mid-February. I’ve felt held up lately from the lack of natural lighting needed for photos.

She isn’t finished yet.
I am attempting this year to share process and unfinished photos because I like the realness of it all. I don’t want to idolize the finished project all polished, but the messy, fleetingness of the process. This current iteration could be undone and changed. The final piece is often multiple drafts and edits.

It’s been difficult warping this 💔 metal frame because of the shape/movement of it.

Yesterday I finally finished warping both pieces of the frame, and I actually got to begin playing with the weaving.

My original palette for this piece was going to be an all black weaving with a scalloped outline around it. I finished scalloping half of it and wasn’t fully in love, so I unknotted it. I got some new fibers from yesterday and decided to scrap the palette too.

This current palette has been in the making, but it wasn’t originally intended for this piece.

This year is about realness and stepping out of the square. I want to share the process including my drafts of a piece and my inspirations more. This year I’m not trying to just crank out pieces, or get faster. I want the time, care and intentionality with each piece to be felt. No more creating just to create or fill space. I want y’all to feel like I’m creating a piece from my house to yours. It’s my journey with it and now time for yours. This piece so far as taken multiple changes, she is a journey thus far. Even the frame I’ve been holding onto for 2 years till I felt ready.

For the slow living in 2024.
I’m back from Arizona, it’s the second year I’ve gotten to spend some wintery time there. I am trying to get that snowbird life 🤞🏽

It was such a relaxing time there with my Mom. No agenda except to go with her daily to feed the cemetery cats… and maintain her Pokémon Go 😁

I had time to read out in the sun, and finish my first book of the year, On Palestine by Chomsky and Pappé. I’ve had this book for awhile, but finally fully read the book. Where are all my partial book readers at?!

📎📚 Giant paper clip bookmarks coming soon, but I’m not sure when yet. 📎📚

I’ve been slowing working on a new website, and my current one is still closed for a break. To be honest, I don’t know when I’m opening it back up. I’m enjoying this moment of slowness and recuperation.

Twenty Twenty Four

I haven’t felt like posting the usual year in review. For me, it hasn’t felt right acting like business as usual with the ongoing genocide. 🍉🍉
Last year I began intertwining more activism within my art and shop donating to organizations and posting and sharing. It has been a breath of fresh air for me, mingling my activism into my art and shop more because these two aspects of me have felt divorced or compartmentalized for awhile. That’s a longer story for another day.

In 2024, I aim to fold them together more gracefully and deeply. I have been dreaming and creating pieces, but more I have been thinking what can I do as an artist and small business. This is a conversation I’d love to have with others.

I wanted to also repost and share this thread from I saw a couple weeks ago, and it had been something consistently on my mind for this moment and future.

In 2024, I hope for a ceasefire and the liberation of Palestine. I also hope that we keep the teeth in our art!

🏜 P.s. My online shop is closed from 1/1-1/5. I’m spending some time in Arizona with my Mom and sunshine 🌞

* Photo taken by the White House in 2016/2017

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A few fuzzy mushroom ornaments have been added to my online shop!

I held off updating my website sooner because of the Palestinian call for a global strike earlier this week. 🇵🇸

I will have a few of these ornaments with me this Saturday at the Makers’ Market in Greenfield too! If any are left, I’ll bring them to a group pop-up on Sunday. This will be my last in person event this year.

I’m ready for 2024 and taking time to work on larger pieces and different ideas.

Swapping out a disco ball for a disco ball planter on this s**g hanger.
🖤🪩🤍

Since the beginning the s**g disco ball hangers have been made with a welded ring, so you can swap out the 🪩 for a plant. She’s sturdy!

I decided to play around with a disco ball planter, so you can have the plant and disco all in one.

This piece will be available first this Saturday!!

Snowflake Suncatcher Giveaway

🌞❄️🌞❄️🌞❄️🌞❄️🌞❄️

I haven’t done a giveaway in a H O T minute, between the wedding/ moving, but I wanna give some love and sparkles this holiday season.

To Enter:
❄️ Like this post
❄️Follow .up.in.knots
❄️ Tag 3 folks you’d want to have a snowball fight with!
❄️ Bonus entry: Share in your story, make sure to tag me or screenshot and message me if your profile is private!

Giveaway Ends 12/12 11:59pm Pacific. Winner will be notified by message on 12/14. Giveaway open only to folks in the US, with free shipping to giveaway winner.

Giveaway not associated or affiliated with Instagram and all that legal jargon.

It’s already December 2nd, what?!

I’m taking events easy this holiday season, and I’m only doing 2 events!

I will be adding more pieces to my website to make it easier to shop from home. I know it can be overwhelming navigating markets during the holidays. I see you! 💗

Next Saturday, at

&

12•16 2nd Annual Makers’ Market in Greenfield. I’m back again!

🌞🦂Today is my thirty-fourth year around the sun 🌞🦂

I thought it was high time I did an introduction, it’s been a hot minute .

I am Melissa Otero-Stearns, the everything behind Tangled Up In Knots. I’ve been creating fiber art since 2020, where all my quarantine hobby turned small business folks?!

I moved to Indiana in the summer of 2020 with my now husband. It has been through markets and pop-ups that I’ve been able to get my bearings in Indiana. And a thank you to the small business community for being so welcoming and through it finding great friends.

Although a Hoosier now, I was actual born and raised in Arizona. 🏜I spent 8 years around California, and a quick jaunt in Virginia and South Carolina.

I’m a banana slug! I went to University of California-Santa Cruz for my B.A in anthropology, focused on cultural/environmental. It was also where I learned so much about Palestine, Iraq, and much of the region through professors and grad students providing critical writings and classes.

I’m newly married, and we have a 10 year old cat, Etta Ramon and a 5 year old beagle/basset hound, Orson.

Some loves & current fixations
❤️‍🔥 Antiquing/Thrifting any 70’s decor especially wood or brass pieces
❤️‍🔥Befriending neighborhood cats
❤️‍🔥 Mexican food
❤️‍🔥Iced coffee even in the winter
❤️‍🔥Listening to The Black Angels

🪩 Now tell me about yourself! 🪩

No special sale on my website today, but my story sale is still up on my story highlights!

Can you see the tiniest rainbow on one of my plant hangers? 🌈🌞

I opened the curtains for product photos, and mysuncatcher threw rainbows all over the floor. I love when that happens!

This month, I’m working to add some of my staple pieces (like the minimalist plant hanger pictured here) and new ones to my website. As much as I loathe saying it, the holidays are coming up…real quick. 🤮 I won’t be going wild this year on holiday markets, so you’ll be able to find more on my website. I’m even considering a delivery options for those in Indy, if folks are interested.

P.s. The plant hangers are live on my website! Perfect for small to larger pots because they sit only on the square knots. It’s the least ornate of my pieces, but the simplicity makes it very versatile.