Decisions, Decisions! by Helen M. Stevens

Have you ever stopped to wonder what separates a photo that's merely nice from a photo that really stops you in your tracks?

It's a big question that we could write about in every issue a week for a year and still not get to the bottom of it, but today we want to zero in on just one ingredient, because we think Helen M. Stevens has nailed it in her piece Decisions, Decisions! from The Handpicked Collection 7.

First, let's set the scene.

Helen has perched a squirrel on a Scots pine branch, surrounded by pinecones in every stage of maturity - some barely more than green buds, some fully opened and ready to give up their seeds.

It's an accurate bit of natural history: Scots pinecones take three full years to develop, so a foraging squirrel really is doing what the title suggests - constantly deciding. Eat now, or squirrel it away for the leaner months ahead? This one, or the next one along the branch?

But the real skill on display here isn't the botany - it's the moment Helen has chosen to capture.

Any wildlife photographer will tell you the difference between an average shot and a great one usually comes down to timing - catching the split second where something is about to happen.

That's exactly what's going on here. Helen has taken a photograph in stitch, frozen at the instant her squirrel clocks that he's being watched.

You can read the whole story in his posture. He's clearly been hard at it - foraging furiously, the way squirrels do - and he's just closed his paws around a cone.

Is it a keeper? We don't know yet, because he's stopped mid-inspection, head snapped around, staring straight down the lens as if to say to us onlookers ‘and what exactly do you think you're looking at?’

His foot is braced against the ground, tensed for a fast exit. His ears are pricked bolt upright. His eyes have narrowed.

This isn't a squirrel caught in a moment of wonder - this is a squirrel in a moment of pure, coiled determination.

All of that, from a single still image.

Helen builds this drama with a perfectly curated thread palette - Anchor stranded cotton, Madeira metallic gold, and no fewer than twelve shades of Piper's Silks floss, worked mostly in straight, satin and stem stitch, often with two colours blended in the needle at once.

It's this blending, along with careful ‘softening’ of outlines and voids worked in graduated stages, that gives the fur its bristling, almost photographic texture - nothing sits flat, everything catches the light differently depending on the angle you view it from.

And behind it all, a deceptively simple choice: black ground fabric. Stitched against that inky background, every fleck of autumn gold, burnt copper and silver seems to glow, and the drama of the moment - that coiled, watchful tension - is thrown into sharp, unmistakable relief.

It's a reminder that the best stitching, like the best photography, isn't about showing everything - it's about choosing the one moment that says it all.

Get that moment right, and it doesn't just last a split second. It lasts a lifetime.

If you would like to re-create your own perfectly timed Decisions, Decisions! you can purchase a Ready-to-Stitch kit using the link below.

To enjoy more of Helen’s designs, be sure to check out her website HERE plus you can also follow her on Facebook HERE and Instagram HERE.