Striving, with some result

I am still struggling to pull myself out of the doldrums. Partly the winter, I think, and partly the result of a number of years, rather more full of stress and striving than are good for the human condition. A long tale and I won't bore you. I am trying to gently coax myself into a daily habit of meditation and mindfulness - both of which I have practised on and off for many a year. This to run in tandem with a six week stress release course to which I have been allotted. Sadly, as with all my strivings, their more off than on nature has resulted in a great sense of failure and that horrid little whisper at the back of the mind that says "you're gonna fail again y'know". Do wish she'd shut up!

These sea ripples, captured recently, remind me of the mind's untempered behaviour. Thoughts poke up above the surface of the hoped for meditative calm and before you know it, off the mind goes along one flow or another, carried to another place entirely, until you notice and draw it back to the peaceful place again, and again and again

I have managed four days in a row to spend a brief period of meditation each day and, perhaps, if I confess here, it will prompt me to maintain the habit a little longer than in the past. I would like to find myself on a shore where a daily practice brings me to a greater balance and equilibrium. My comfort is this - at least I'm still trying :-)

If you go down to the sea today

you'll get jolly cold, but you might find

time

marked

in light

and space

through distance

by happenstance

Light

Living in another land

I've been here in the last few weeks, time off, resting, enough brain power to begin reading, fascinated by this long ago, yet very human place and time. It may be a while before I finish these!

Back at work today, my hand aching like an incessant toothache, not entirely sure why, and labyrinthitis making any move from the absolute vertical a bit interesting, a trying day, but otherwise manageable. People were kind, and work got done

.......

Starting and finishing

As these bits of embroidery should be seen from the back and the front, I have no muslin to hide threads behind. One way of doing this is with an "away knot"; you bring the thread through from front to back some distance (at least a needle's length) away from where you start, begin with a small back stitch to secure, then weave the waste thread in once you've finished. As this fabric has a good even weave, and is quite firm, I am lacing the tail end through the very top thread of the weave on the back, where it will be over stitched, then taking the securing stitch. It will save me time and the end result is the same.

Finishing off

The tacking thread shows me the perimeters of the space I'm filling in each quadrant. I've divided the space up in a similar way to some of the carpet pages in manuscripts like Kells and Lindisfarne. I'm quite nervous about all this, truth be told, there are so many fine needle women in the guild, who have been members for many years. I hope my stitching is up to scratch! There has been unpicking already!

Get Lucky

Sometimes, you just get lucky. I was planning a gardening post about cutting back the flowering currant as it is starting to shoot (with apologies for iPad photos of dubious quality).

For me pruning is always about where the plant or shrub puts its energy.

So here it is all scrambled up with tall shoots growing up beyond the height of the fence. The energy of last year has reached for the sky and there is ivy clustering about the base. Branches will rub together in the wind and damage each other. Not good

and here, with around a third of the oldest growth cut right down, a third cut back, and the rest of last year's shoots reduced by about a third. I try to do this each year as it keeps the centre open and leaves plenty of space for the coming year's growth. However, while I was deep in the heart of it, right at the back near the fence, I looked up just in time to see my very favourite little bird, the goldcrest, enjoying the fat block about four feet away on the nearby feeding station. I stood stock still and just watched. Oh a precious sight. Then it got better. I wandered down to the bottom of the garden to see how the Dell was doing.

The walnut and the birch bracket the space with their lovely pale trunks, the grass is all died down and there is very little sign of the flourishing growth that heralds high summer. As I drifted back up the garden I heard the nearby call of a fox. I stopped and stood, and stood, very quiet and relaxed, trying my best to disappear and there he was, trotting up the path

and a little later, whilst I was enjoying the sun setting behind my favourite oaks,

I heard yet another bark, and there he was again retracing his journey

Oh lucky me

Auditioning

I am away from work at the moment, on doctors orders. This gives me some time to nurse the daily hurts that come with having Fybromyalgia and a connective tissue disorder, which leave me feeling drained and exhausted. I don't talk about my health much here, it seems too much like an indulgence, and is only part of who I am. However, I reached a point where I simply had to stop. This allows me to do things at my own pace, to rest when I need to and to take a focused course of Ibuprofen to try and help my body to heal itself. I feel like a convalescent, but the positive side is that I have time to work on a stitch project our Branch Chairman has suggested, a sort of stitch dictionary. We chose two bits of fabric and a piece of folded paper on which was writ our stitch - in my case, blanket stitch. One is to work the stitch in as many variants as possible, using a variety of threads and pushing the stitch to see where it will go. The second bit of fabric is to create an image, using the threads and stitches.

The first task, of course, is to audition threads. I tried a varity, the brief being to use as many different weights and types of thread, and to push the stitch as far as it will go. There were a number that didn't work

This little twist of greens (from Cecil's stash), while full of lovely textures, moves the colour range too far away from "neutrals" which was the brief

likewise, the yellow/orange is, too far away from the initial range. 

So here is what I came up with

the darker piece of fabric will be my test bed, the rosy coloured one I'm keeping for the image. This is my excuse for moving the colours towards the rusty and ruddy, which blend with the darker fabric as well. I have a few ideas for an image, but nothing firm yet. I'm waiting to see what the stitch can do and what it says to me.