I started on Frida such a long time ago, in 2011, I think. I'd barely done any embroidery, especially not free embroidery. I used the figure shape in a painting and transferred the outline onto my fabric. Then I just drew in the vines freehand, though rather incomplete.
Planning has never been my strong suit. This is by way of saying, there are so many things I would change about this piece. It is so imperfect and frustrating because of that, even if there's only myself to blame.
There is a need to finish her, though, and I hope I will. The original plan had been to send her to a friend from high school, as a wedding present, though I also made a quilt block for her wedding quilt. She's an extreme Frida fan, or was. We haven't been in touch for a long time. I couldn't bear to have this on my walls. While I love the piece, the reminder of the friendship and the staring face of imperfection would bother me too much.
Maybe I'll send her off anyone. This friend, she wouldn't think it was too odd, I don't imagine, and I don't think she'd feel guilt over it, or like she owed anything. She was always easy-going and accepting where I was controlled and over analytical.
Well it was about time I took up Frida again, so I did. I finished the main vine border, the plain dark green on. It goes all the way around her. The second set is almost done and go around about halfway. The third vine design will be a browny green with thorns. The color in the picture is a bit off - I took it at night so I had to up the contrast to get the light colored vine and flowers to be easily visible.
I finally got a magnifier that I can use while stitching (not a great one, just a holdover until I figure out a nicer one to get - any suggestions?) but I still feel like I'm going blind. Making an appointment for an eye exam next week (plus then I can get some cute new glasses from Zenni).
Here in Charleston the summers are usually full of rain. It's a very very humid area so we'll get sudden huge downpours that last 15 minutes and then the sun comes out again. This is pretty good for gardeners but awful for me. My fibromyalgia pain gets way worse eight hours or so before it rains and stays bad until it starts raining. It's nice to be able to predict the rain (well, sort of) but it makes the summers horrible. Add to that the fact that the heat makes my legs, feet, and hands swell worse than usual and you have a fairly unhappy young lady.
So what to do other than throw myself into stitching, blindness or no! I'm almost done with my rose tea napkin, I did a rustic tea towel design, and I'm working on a custom piece for someone which includes a border that I'm very proud of. I'll be showing them off in the next few days.
Today was long. Well, okay, last week was long in general and today's eight hour drive was just the tipping point for my body to completely shut down. I have levels of shut down. Sometimes a good complete four or five hour rest followed by a long sleep is enough to get me back to subnormal, but that pre-supposes I'll get more rest the next day, which I don't get if I'm away from home.
The result is that by the end of the week I stop getting any relief from sleep. So the car ride home tends to be punctuated by me taking breaks to start getting drunk bright and early or just generally groaning and being crabby. Or in the case of this drive, insisting on reading aloud from one of my favorite books to my mother for hours on end. One does what one can.
I finally did buckle down and start the vine border on my Frida Kahlo piece. As with most everything about that piece, I am loving the result! There will be three or four different types of vine, different shades of green and brown, but also one that's smooth, one with thorns, etc... I'm doing the smooth one first in deep green with highlights in kelly green satin thread which is producing a wonderful effect.
It was a really nice beach week, in any case. We had a couple super beautiful days with perfect weather, I got a few good pictures, found a four record set of Baroque music and La Traviata record set for fifty cents each (both look like they were never played), and added a pretty tea cup to my collection.
My replacement Wacom tablet pen arrived so I've gotten straight to work on smoothing out some of my embroidery patterns and have begun making the PDF files for the patterns that I'll sell in Hardcore StitchCorps when it opens on Etsy.
I may spend the next two days lying still and sleeping, but one thing I learned very quickly into my disability was that it's always worth it to push yourself farther than you should. Not that you should do it for weeks and months on end, but you should as often as you can. Mental health is more important than physical health, after all.
You know, if I had a store of miscellaneous awesome crap I would called it Girly Progress. I've never been seen as a very girly girl, and many strangers thought I was a boy for a big portion of my childhood. However, I've always been simultaneously a complete girly girl and a super tomboy. I think that's good, personally. I like both worlds.
Since I got sick though I have gradually lost almost all those boyish pleasures. It's all knitting, embroidery, baking, and Japanese dolls. No more climbing and hiking, no more cartwheels and tipsy swagger home. My first car was a 1988 Ford Ranger, completely beat-up and run down, but oh so perfect. Now I drive a 1992 (or closeby) Pontiac GrandAm. That is pretty much the ultimate metaphor for the changes that have overtaken me.
The best defense is to think wholeheartedly about everyone else in the world. I try to feed my mom at least once a week, pack up soups and such for her to take for lunch (she works twelve and fourteen hour days regularly). I knit and sew and bake for my nephew. I scrape whatever good news and glad tidings I can find in my life and make that the focus on my conversation with my dad and siblings.
And then I decide to undertake a large-scale embroidery project for my high school best friend with whom I haven't been in regular communication for about six years. I still love her so much, and I miss all those friends. All these people who suck at keeping in touch and peeled off rapidly when I got sick. I was the glue, the one who called and wrote and made the effort. Then I couldn't make the effort anymore and no one else picked up the slack.
Sometimes I am so angry about it, so deeply hurt, so stubbornly clinging to the fact that it's their responsibility to remember me even while I dream and pine for them. I am trying to get over it. I am trying to force myself back upon them but it feels so much like begging. Begging to be remembered, to be treated like a normal friend again and not some scary "There but for the grace of God go I..." example for everyone my age.
So here I am. Toiling over projects that I may never work up the courage to give away. It is a way to cope. It is generally healthy for me. Plus, it certainly yields some beautiful work.
I've finally started on my Frida Kahlo embroidery piece. Got the main bit transferred and I'll just be filling in the background with birds and flowers and vines and such (no monkeys, I hate monkeys).
It's a bit nerve-wracking since I don't have a clear idea of how I'll be filling in the skirt and shawl. It's embroidery though, it's allowed to be loose and free and lovely. It is fairly large as well, larger than I had at first envisioned, but it probably needs to be about this size in order for the face not to look muddled.
Had a nice interlude with my mom today. We ate the soup I made when I was sick (and didn't eat then because my sense of taste was still wonky) and watched an episode of Bones (her fave rave show). Now that my appetite is mostly back I want something completely unhealthy to eat but easy to make.
