Healing Handcrafting

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Summoning Creativity #7~ Slow Growth, Slow Healing

My post is late this month because I’ve hurt my back something wicked and it’s really had me down for the count. Life has been very full and I’ve not been terribly good at following the advice that is the title of this post. This month’s Summoning Creativity effort is offered to me as much as it is to you.

I came across a quote recently that is in this marvelous book called Mystical Stitches: Embroidery for Personal Empowerment and Magical Embellishment by Christi Johnson.

Christi wrote,

Until recent history, the slow growth reflected in the natural world and in the required crafts of daily living was all there was. Our bodies and minds evolved thanks to, and in support of, slow growth. Today, we live in a culture that not only makes it possible to force growth but often expects it. While we don’t have to eschew technological or human progress, we must weave the appreciation for slow growth back into the tapestry of our lives if we hope to move toward a more harmonious relationship with the natural environment that surrounds us.

This writing made me nod and exclaim out loud, “yes, thank you for this reminder”. I read it a few days before I hurt my back, and I find myself going back to it now when just sitting to weave or stitch or even read is somewhat challenging because there is no comfortable position I can be in for very long.

Applying these words to my own healing is a learning edge to me. Over the last several years, I’ve had several injuries and physical realities that have forced me to reckon with the impatience I have with my own body. While I relish slow growth, slow healing is a whole other matter. I’ve got a lot of work to do there.

And once again, I have the opportunity to reckon with this issue of mine.

How will I do it?

My current thinking is to relate to the pain I’m feeling in a visual way. I want to look at images of the muscles, nerves and vertebrae that are communicating with me. Maybe I’ll draw them, or stitch them, or at some point, weave them. I will add color and texture to impatience, to my tendency to force healing on myself (which never works), and I will try to relate to the parts of me that have some slow growing to do, namely patience with and compassion for… me.

So, here we go.

Do you have health issues that impact your making? How do you reckon with these themes?

Until next time,
~ bradie


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Slow Stitch Stitch-Along Weeks 5 and 6

“Any regular, repetitive action primes the well. Writers have heard many woeful tales of the Bronte sisters and poor Jane Austen, forced to hide their stories under their needle-work. A little experiment with some mending can cast a whole new light on these activities. Needlework, by definition regular and repetitive, both soothes and stimulates the artist within. Whole plots can be stitched up while we sew. As artists, we can very literally reap what we sew.” Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

For Week 4, we worked on the fly stitch. I loved this stitch. It was fun, satisfying, took a little bit to get the hang of, and then lent itself generously to experimentation and shaping. I thought I’d have time to make two squares, but alas, one was all I could complete. I’m working on not urgently finishing something that is supposed to be a practice in steady and slow. Urgency and too-busy are not qualities in life I value any longer. I think they are over-rated tendencies that make people sick. They distract focus from what is right in front of us. There are only so many hours in a day and I’m coming to accept ever more that really, there is a finite amount of time in which I will exist. All of the many things I want to do, wish I had of done, hope to do in the future have to be reconciled with the reality of what is.

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I kind of meant to do a square of fly stitch in rows, but then I decided that actually, the stitches were reminding me of wheatgrass and of weeping willow branches without their leaves. I decided to allow myself to make what I saw in my mind’s eye. It was a lovely experience.

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So, we are moving along in our Slow-Stitch. I am going to add two stitches to our queue and give myself two weeks to play around with them. Halloween and my son’s birthday make this upcoming week more exciting and full than usual, so I plan on steadily and quietly moving through stitches as I can.

It’s not too late to join if you’d like!

Here are the two new stitches: sorbello and seed. Practice using small squares of fabric, maybe one on its own and one in layers. Use thread that calls to you and let yourself enjoy the process without the sense of rushing or pressure urging your hands.

If you’re wondering what this is all about, here’s the introduction to this Stitch Along, that was entirely inspired by the book Slow Stitch: Mindful and contemplative textile art, by Claire Wellesley-Smith.