Friday, November 30, 2012

Thankful for Embroidery

I had cause to be very thankful for embroidery over the holiday weekend. I woke up Friday morning with a recurrence of vertigo from a few years back (this time is BPPV, I've had run ins with various types of vertigo).  When I have it, I need to be still. Not move my head much at all. And be upright. Perfect for my favorite hobby.
I'd been working along when I could on the Tanya Berlin Needlepainted Robin. I made good progress this past weekend. I've completed the wing feathers and the spray of blossoms and leaves below the bird. The other leaves are nearly done. It is a bit odd to work this along side the Japanese work--in Japanese embroidery you work front to back, in needlepainting you work back to front.
Long weekends area also a time when I haul out my Japanese embroidery frame and work on that. All I worked on this weekend was the gold couching at the end of the fan. I had a time of it! Controlling the metallic gold and the seeing golden couching threads amongst all of the reflections was difficult. I usually work in the morning but on Sunday I hadn't been feeling well, so I worked later in the day. I could see so much better with the sun at a different angle! 

 It doesn't look like I did much at all but I worked about five hours total over the weekend and completed three additional rounds of couching. It's pretty intense so I only work about an hour and a half at a time. 

This week I doctored. I saw a doctor for the vertigo, had a root canal (which went as perfectly as something like that can go--I love my dentist!) and saw a therapist to begin to help alleviate the dizziness. I feel better already this afternoon. The therapy will hopefully continue next week (after we sort some insurance issues). 

The cherry on top? Today we received notice that we all get off both Christmas eve and New Year's eve as holidays, in addition to the days themselves as a special gift. Woo-hoo!

5 comments:

Samplers, Silks and Linens said...

the feathers on the bird look lovely as do the little pink flowers, beautiful work - i really would love to try my hand at goldwork - am waiting for my little one to start daycare so hopefully then i will have time and the ability to concentrate, lol! hope you feel better soon.

terryb said...

Beautiful work on both the robin and the fan. But perhaps you can answer a question: What is the theory behind working from front to back, or alternately from back to front. I have to admit, working from back to front seems more logical to me, but that reflects the training I've had. The Japanese must have chosen the reverse for reasons that are not apparent to those who have not been students of JE.

coral-seas said...

Your gold couching looks very good. I was not in the habit recording my time when I stitched Suehiro so have no record of how long it took to fill the end blade. I know that it was many hours. The good news is that each round is shorter than the previous one so it goes quicker as you fill the shape.

Jenny Woolf said...

It would make me dizzy doing all that fine work,but the gold couching looks wonderful.

Moonsilk Stitches said...

I've found that goldwork does take quiet and concentration. In particular chipwork (a traditional embroidery technique I've not seen in Japanese embroidery)--those little pieces of metal like to hop around.

I really don't know why you go front to back in Japanese embroidery. It could be to get a perfect shape on the foremost item and then allow one point open space between it and any background items so the space "comes from" the background. A good question to ask at the Japanese embroidery group.

I've found on my own I go both ways, depending on the shapes and stitches to be used. But I've never really sat down and thought about why.