Injuries by Embroidery

So, funny story. I woke up one night in late July with excruciating pain radiating down my neck and shoulder into my fingers. Pain that barely responded to medication, exercise, or anything else. I tried chiropractic massage and adjustments, acupuncture, physical therapy, round-the-clock meds, and it only just took the edge off. Suffice to say: age 46 was off to a bang-up start.

I spent almost all of August in a haze of pain and medication and not sleeping.  My fingers went numb and I had pins and needles in my arm off and on, plus a lot of pain under my arm where the shoulder muscles come together.  

I did see an orthopedist during that time and he prescribed steroids for a week, which helped the first couple of days, but not much after. Had imaging done and: (*cue the trumpet*) I have torn my rotator cuff and pinched the nerve in my C7 vertabrae.

The tear is relatively small, so the doc wanted to start with a cortisone shot in my shoulder, which did help some.  I saw the neck person two weeks ago and she wants me to get a shot in my neck for the pinched nerve (pray for me!) as well as additional imaging.  I’ve had herniated discs in my neck for a long time, but it looks like perhaps the herniation has gotten worse.  

Here’s the funny part. I think I aggravated the whole thing with the embroidery project I finished recently. I did think initially I caused the injury that way, but that is ridiculous. Injury by embroidery! While things are better overall, and I’m on less pain meds overall, I still have to be careful.

My neck shot is in a week, as is the additional neck imaging, so I’m not out of the woods yet, but I still have costumes to alter for the fall play at my kids’s school, so I’m pacing myself with the sewing.

All that said, I’m quite pleased with how this blouse came out, pain not withstanding! I adapted a hoop embroidery pattern I found on Etsy, so it wasn’t too difficult. Sulky Stick-and-Stitch is easy to use, although I did baste it on again, since the piece was so large and I knew I would be carrying it around for a while.

It definitely makes me like this blouse more, and while I need to make some small fit alterations to it because I made it when I was much bigger than I am currently, I will be happy to wear it now!  

Apros of nothing: I do love lantana and mine are finally flowering again!

A wee summertime project

Popping in to show a little embroidery project I did in the past month.  I don't sew very much for myself any more (all my slopers are wrong since the weight loss and I haven't had the motivation to redo them when thrifting is pretty good and fabric stores in short supply).  I thrifted this linen shirt in the spring and wore it a couple of times but found it dull.  It is not quite white so I thought it might be fun to embroider it to liven it up.  I did a bunch of embroidery like this a few years back, so I had a notion of what I was in for.

I used the Sulky Stick and Stitch stabilizer because it can be printed on regular printer.  The designs came from an etsy seller that I adapted into the larger motif.  There were three designs total.  I drew out the lines of the neck and shoulders and then started placing the motifs until I had something I liked and then photocopied that onto the stabilizer.  Worked pretty well!  

The size of the piece meant I had to baste the edges of the stabilizer to keep it from moving around too much, but otherwise, fairly straightforward and enjoyable project.  It was a great traveling project.  

I'm plotting to fancy up a linen top I made a few years ago, as I like the linen but don't wear it very much now.  Maybe embroidery will make me want to wear it.  My go-to clothes this summer have been boxy linen tops just like that one, although mostly thrifted, and linen/rayon palazzo pants.  (These pants fit me like ankle pants, which was what I was going for).  I also found possibly the most perfect warm weather pants evah in the most glorious shade of yellow.  Pants are usually my nemesis, so it is nice to have a few pairs that fit well.  It isn't my usual lewk, and is perhaps not the most flattering thing, but I'm finding in this season, I don't really care: 

I know, I know, I was the skirts and dresses girl.  I still wear them pretty regularly in the colder months, and I do have a nice rotation of summer skirts and dresses, but most days lately, its the palazzos and the boxy tops.  (To be fair, the palazzos almost look like a skirt, there is so much fabric in the legs).  I will say, the biggest factor in the pants is that I don't have to shave my legs!  It is a chore that is never finished in the hot months because it is humid here and my legs still swell a bit in the heat.  And it has been HOT here this summer.    

And, finally, drum roll please...I have a (terrible) first draft of the novel I started writing last summer!  I'm right in the middle of the word count range for this genre, and while the editing road ahead is long, it is nice to finally have a big lump of dough to shape in my hands.  How's that for a mixed metaphor?!?

Go Big or Go Home

So, remember this handkerchief linen Remy I made last summer?  I wore it quite a bit, but always felt that the 3/4 sleeves were not helpful overall.  Because: hot flashes.

It was a nice at-the-lake-swim-coverup, but generally, I couldn't wear it at home because of our swampy mostly-AC-less existence.   (By way of example, it has been 82 degrees inside the house for the past several weeks.  And that was a great improvement over the temperature outside).

In the fall, I cut the sleeves to short sleeves and rehemmed by hand, keeping the cut-off sleeve pieces together in my bin.  I almost cut into them several times for other things, but my hand was stayed each time.  

Fast forward to May, and I wore the short-sleeve version on a hot day, which was just the thing.  At the time, I was plotting the first embroidered linen tshirt, and had in mind to embroider this one similarly when I finished that one.  

I faffed about with the design for quite a while before figuring out what I wanted to do.  I stitched the red one in between and then started this one on the flight home from visiting my parents in June.  

The initial embroidery went quickly, and I washed out the stabilizer, but it looked a little...unfinished.  So I took one of the designs I had made when deciding and incorporated it into the back, wrapping the embroidery around the whole neckline.  I also added a few more elements to front to fill it in better.  

The extra design and stitching took a few more weeks, so I didn't finish this until mid-July.  Then I decided I wanted to add cuffs to the sleeves to make them look a bit more polished, which took additional time to get to and complete.  I resewed on the sleeves, thought for a hot minute about leaving them 3/4 length again, but realized short sleeve is more useful to me at the moment.  This tutorial was helpful for retroactively adding the cuffs.  

I admit, it does feel a little "precious" now, but I am reminding myself that clothes exist to be worn.  Plus it is very pretty! 

I really like how the color scheme worked out--it is a little more peachy than the other white one, so at least the palettes are slightly different but still work with a lot of my skirts.  

I wore it a couple of times in July for church. Our church has AC, but it is an old building and rather humid in the choir area, so I'm always hot.  This was the perfect stay-cool-while-standing-in-close-quarters-for-two-hours blouse.  I realize the untucked look is maybe not the most flattering on my figure, but at the moment, my hot flashes + the weather mean that I kind of don't care.  It's good to have air movement in my clothes--probably something I should have figured out long ago, but there it is.  Some things you only learn in your 40s.  Ha!

Necklace embroidery

After the success of the embroidery on my white linen blouse, I decided to work out a design for the collar of my Biking Red linen blouse.  It is a color I generally like, and have made several garments from it, but I was struggling to want to wear it for whatever reason.

I decided on a more delicate scheme that repeated all the way around the neckline, using a motif from another pattern.  My original color scheme was all shades of bone and off white, but I was sorting colors for another project and the dark green seemed like a good fit with the others.  While sorting colors, I realized that in embroidery, subtle is better than bold in terms of color.  I think that was one of my mistakes with the sage Remy.  I was trying to perk up the color since it washed me out, but perhaps a more subtle color scheme would have accomplished the same thing and I would have liked it better.  Or not.  I dunno.  

The embroidery on this one is all two stranded, as opposed to the white one, which is mostly three strand, with some six strand work on there.  So that one is much denser.  I like the more subtle look of this piece for the scale of the embroidery.  

I worked on this piece while at my parents' in June; it was a nice size project to have along, and since I finished it before I left, I was able to wear it too!  I started the third project on the way home from that trip.  The third one sort of grew exponentially, so I've only recently finished it.  

In any case, I've worn this blouse a bunch of times since finishing the embroidery, and it was definitely the right way to perk it up.  It bears saying, however, that I'm not super eager to repeat that motif again any time soon!

*Obviously, these pictures are from June, as my garden is currently in the jungle stage!

Leave No Craft Behind

That is to say: Embroidery.  Specifically, embroidering clothing.  It's not my first go at the craft; I did some embroidery on clothing back when I was experimenting with early 20th century styles.  And then there was the Remy I embroidered in May to try and make it more wearable (spoiler: it didn't work and I still don't like it).  

The upshot of the failed Remy was that I was inspired to embroider other garments, particularly blouses, for summer.  I planned out a white blouse with a big floral collar, adapting a hoop pattern for it.  

The color scheme in the pattern sample was close to what I wanted, but I made a few color swaps to get the screen colors rather than the actual colors, which were much duller in person.  It is a little bit more purple-y than peachy now, but it suits my palette well and I'm happy with it.

The wagon-wheel roses were quite fiddly, and they do mean I have to hand-wash the piece, but it isn't a big deal on such a small blouse that is linen.  The experience did make me decide to avoid wagon wheel roses on future clothing, however.  There's only so much hand-washing I want to do.

This was my first project using a stick and stitch printable stabilizer for the pattern.  It is brilliant--you print your design on the printer, cut it out, stick it on the fabric and stitch, then wash it out.  

Much better than my old tissue paper method, and even better than the iron-on transfer method, as it isn't limited by what you can find in iron-on transfer.

I love how this came out and have worn it a bunch of times already (shown here with my agave linen skirt, but it looks great with the beet linen and the sage linen as well).  I immediately started another project and planned out a third, both finished now (stay tuned!)  While I've done a bit of knitting this summer, the embroidery hoop has my attention at the moment.  What garment can I embellish next?!?  Idle hands and all that.

Embroidered Remy

In the fall, when I was batch sewing 3/4 linen tops, I made a Remy from some pale sage Brussels linen that I hated immediately.  The linen/rayon substrate in a top made me feel hot and cranky until the humidity and heat broke sometime in October, and then the color made me feel very washed out and dull.  It didn't seem to go with much in my closet.  I put it and the skirt I made with the rest of the 2 yards into my bin to evaluate later.  

The skirt turned out to be a good summer make, and I've worn it several times already this spring.

The shirt continued to languish, however, and I wondered if I could perk it up and make myself like it better with embroidery.  I realize it is a lot of work to undertake to rescue a garment that might not be salvageable, but it was worth the experiment. 

I've been wanting to embroider some of my clothes for a while, but have chickened out because I didn't want to wreck something I already liked a lot.  It was a low-investment way to try out whether I'd like the finished look.  

I started with the front of the shirt, doing two lines down the center seam of the top using an iron-on transfer I had in my bins. I liked that well enough, and decided to repeat it on the sleeves as well. I added some whip stitching to the collar, cuffs, and hem, and it is...fine.

I like the look of it, as it is somewhat evocative of peasant-style rubashkas of Eastern Europe, although a white top with red stitching would be just about perfect.  I think the main problem is that I don't love the fit on it, and it doesn't go with much in my closet.  It matches the skirt in these photos, but that skirt really doesn't fit me.  Maybe the dark denim skirt I thrifted and altered?  I dunno.  

I will probably enjoy wearing it during Bright Week next year, as I was wanting something like this during Bright Week this year, but I was still working on the embroidery that week.  I enjoy the process of embroidery and find it somewhat meditative, so this project was worth it from that perspective anyway, and it gave me the confidence to undertake another embroidery project on a new top for summer.  I'm nearly done with it, and am looking forward to wearing it.  (Also: print and stick embroidery stabilizer is magic!)

In the meantime, enjoy some garden spam!  I've been working hard to get the kitchen garden into shape for the season, and I'm pretty happy with it now.  

A neighbor friend dug up her blueberry bush for me and left it on my doorstep early yesterday morning; I have good friends like that.  :)  It is loaded with tiny berries, and is definitely a different variety from the one I was gifted last summer from a different friend, so I'm curious to see how the two bushes do together.  I pruned the original one a bit this weekend, hoping to encourage more berry production, as there are only a handful right now, whereas last year this time, it was loaded.  I probably should have pruned it earlier, but maybe it will still fruit well.

I also hit the mother lode at the hardware store over the weekend as they had mature strawberry plants, some with already-ripening berries!  I bought three and put two in big pots and one in the middle box planter with the other bare roots I've started.  The ones in that planter seem to be doing okay, whereas I've lost almost all the ones I put in the boxes in the corner--probably not enough sunlight or something.  

My sun situation back there is tricky because half the patio is partially shaded in the morning and afternoon, but not the same half!  So the sun lovers get the prime spot along the brick wall where it is sunny most of the day, and the others have to make do.  Although I have to be careful that the brick wall doesn't scorch the plants.  It's a balancing act.  I also found a good looking watermelon vine with a bunch of flowers on it, and some purple cauliflower, a couple of bell peppers, an additional cucumber, and some herbs.  (To be clear, this is a 16'x8' space, with walls on all sides, and a large grill on one end of the patio).

The cucumber plants I put in a few weeks ago from an online order look pretty decent too, so perhaps we'll get produce this year?  I found a little wood trellis for them, since only two will be able to trellis on the mesh wall put in for that purpose in 2020, although the watermelon may be able to trellis there, so not a total loss.  

The raspberry plant is loaded with berries (and still sending out more flowers!) so we should get a decent yield if they ripen well.  I had a list of things I wanted to do today, but after a busy gardening weekend and a speed walk of nearly a mile to the bus stop with the kids this morning because I forgot my house keys and had to double back, I'm too tired to think straight.  I think I'll just take up my stitching and call it good.

A rose by any other name...

...would be a Capulet.  Ha! 

Today's project was an attempt to salvage a skirt from last summer that I loved the fabric/color, but not the fit.  The linen was to that perfect level of softness, and I wore it a lot last year, but struggled to get the fit right this year.  The elastics were initially too tight, so I made them longer, and then the thing felt too big and schlubby. 

 

 

I submitted two designs to a crafting magazine in September that had a very specific palette, and the dusty rose of my skirt was one.  I had embroidery threads out already for the submissions, and the two worked so well together I decided to try embroidery on the pocket edges as part one of the fix.  

 

The embroidery design was from a packet of patterns I bought a long time ago.  I enjoyed the process of embroidery quite a bit, and like the result very much.

My attempts at alteration of the skirt's fit, however, less so.  I will say it does fit better than before, and I like the inverted pleats better than the previous iteration, but the pleats are uneven enough to make my eye twitch (something I only noticed after taking the photos--oy!), and the skirt still feels like it has too much volume.  Although, looking at the photos, it looks fine.  It's a feeling I have when wearing it more than the look of it.

After taking off the waistband and reapplying it three times in variations on the fit at the side seams, I gave up.  After this wearing, I washed it and put it in my fabric bin to deal with another day, as I'm out of matching thread and ideas (having started with a full spool, to give some idea of how many seams were applied and ripped out in the course of this alteration!).  My patience for the project is gone.  

I probably need to deconstruct the whole thing (except for the pockets) and recut it on a narrower pattern to see if I like that better.  What I really want to find is a summer skirt pattern that looks good in linen but is relatively slim and straight--i.e. the Elemental skirt in a woven, or my Anne Adams 9481 in the drapier linen.  This seems like an impossible ask.   I know, I know, I should just try something and see how I get on with it.  Maybe I'll find a magical unicorn!