My study partner Lynn and I have been working on Module 8 of the embroidery diploma course learning about Tinting on fabric. It’s easy once you know how, after a few Google searches I was able to find a few videos on how to use the different art media on fabric.
The pieces I am sharing are the same design with dissimilar colour-ways and different tinting techniques, and two seperate hands. In July I had an accident which saw me sprain my left ankle and broken right wrist, and so I have been doing physio to get my right hand moving again.
On the left side of the photo I have used watercolour tinting with multiple weeks of stitching and stages to give my hand a rest and the right side of the photo shows pencil tinting and stitching completed in my left hand, it does feel quite unusual to stitch this way and I am intrigued with the results.
Sunday 8th August saw me back in the hospital, this time not at A&E, but Sacu, I waited to see Dr Burnham, he is a kind and gentle doctor who listened to me about the story of the accident and the stages of being given different casts. I went back to see him as the side of the new cast had become sharp once it was dried, (he gave me a back slab)and it was causing irritation and I was having slight pins and needles, thankfully it wasn’t what it was like as I was given this cast…
It pinched my thumb, hand and wrist and I had pins and needles from the tips of my right foot, tips of fingers of red hand and upper arm travelling up to my shoulder across the back of shoulders slightly down my back and travelling down the left shoulder and arm. I knew it wasn’t normal, but the thing was I had only been home from A&E for less than an hour, the cast I was given was on the Friday was a fibre cast and I choose blue, quite a calming colour to look at when looking at my wrist, I am digressing, I had gone to bed and the pins and needles were much fierce this time and knew I had to go back.
Dr Burnham said if there were any issues with the back slab, (which is the same as 1st image), to come back and see him, I was so confident that there wouldn’t be that I said I wouldn’t be back, in a way I now see it was the right thing to have gone back to see him, as while I was waiting my blood pressure was taken and this time it was normal, Saturday the pressure was ridiculously high. Dr Burnham showed up with another colleague who was a consultant called Dr Varma and he scared the willies into me, because the cast was taken off and he demanded that I make a fist with my right hand, I was in pain and the fingers were stiffened. Dr Varma said something very key, that if I cannot get my hand moving I wouldn’t be able to do embroidery and that is what scared me, not to be able to go back to my work of creating, designing and making.
On Thursday 29th July I was chatting with Lynn, it was so good catching up, we are study partners for our embroidery diploma.
A box of fabrics had just been delivered and she showed me each piece and I was in a happy place with her, I felt encouraged with my creativity while looking through the fabrics with her and knowing that when I am more healed I can start sewing again. Lynn shared the time when her right thumb was fractured and the knuckles were strapped up, she was able to hold the needle between her thumb and first finger and she was able to thread the eye of the needle, I realised while showing her that I cannot pinch my thumb and first finger together and so I may need to wait a little longer, unless I had someone to thread the needle for me.
This is my work in progress for candle wicking, which is worked in colonial knots, they are a different type of knot that is worked within the figure of 8, when I first started working with them I really didn’t like them, I think it was due to the fact that I didn’t understand what I needed to do and it was painfully slow in working through the mechanics of where to position the thread around the needle.
This post was published onto my Facebook page in April, as at that time my website was not up and running. It has been such a long time without my website that I have truly missed blogging and putting thoughts down on paper, but in this case the web. I write in a journal for my personal life, but having this blog is my online journal for Samines.
I am having a quiet sad day and still do not want to face this day, but I am in my own way. A friend sent a kid’s video to shake out the silliness, which was quite nice to bop around to and it helped me to restart the slow journey of getting rid of paperwork. I don’t know how I have acquired so much of it, (actually I do and I along with many others I / we are good at lying to ourselves), in this season it seems and feels very much a blessing that I have been given this special time of space to get rid of my paperwork and other bits I no longer need. This page has not been thrown out as it is two pages of a sketchbook that I created in 2009 for textile/embroidery pieces to be submitted into the Blackheath Embroiderers Guild guild exhibition. I keep my sketchbooks for remembering of art pieces that I have completed, additional development pages and sparking off new ideas in paper, pencil, drawing or stitch form for fresh and inspiring work that is yet to be created. In order for new work to be created, I need to make space in my mind and living space so I can start the new journey of creating pictures or a design on blank paper to allow new ideas to flow and be birthed.
