lovin’ me some blanket stitch…

As of today we have been ‘sheltering in place’ aka SIP, in isolation, on lockdown social distancing and in captivity for

7 weeks, aka 42 days. In all honesty it really has not been that bad! Of those days I have only had one where I thought will this ever end? Mostly it has been like everyday life with the exception of not seeing friends, going to lunch, getting culture and grocery shopping. Oh how I miss grocery shopping, which of course is something I never thought I would say. With the kindness & generosity of friends, neighbors and kin we are thriving.

In our past life, we would be packing this weekend for a trip to France on Monday. I had planned to take an organic embroidery workshop in Brittany at a fabulous country manor, taught by a Dutch artist Mirjam Gielen, who I follow on Instagram. When she mentioned this workshop on her feed, I jumped on it, as the class was for just 8 people. I pondered, decided, reserved class and air all within 24 hours!

As the coronavirus began to spread from Asia into Europe I began to rethink the possibility of making this trip. With my husband’s mobility becoming more and more challenged, I began to worry whether he could make this trip, how (un)cooperative he might be about accepting assistance in airports and on land. So using the virus as an excuse that he could accept, I canceled the trip. Eventually the class was postponed anyway as the virus spread throughout France, and then within the US.

Because I had to cancel for reasons other than the virus, and obviously would not be able to take the workshop, no matter when it was rescheduled, Mirjam graciously asked me if I would like to proofread the tutorial she wrote for the class? That way I would be able to glean the material from the class without attending. After all, I had paid a non-refundable deposit for the workshop. I agreed. She sent me the 50+ page tutorial in a .pdf file while I was in the middle of resizing images for my updated website. So when I finished that, I started reading her materials. Initially I thought that 50 pages would take me a long time, as I am such a slow reader, or rather lousy at comprehension. Yet the material was interesting and fascinating, and I felt, when finished as if I had actually attended the class.

One of the stitches that rocked my world was the blanket stitch. I had tried it several times on my own and always came up with a jumbled mess. I used it in the most recent ‘morning walk’ stitched collage, as part of a rose petal, and it turned out well. So now I am on to another morning walk stitching and I have used it as the crevices in a flat stone, cut for a walkway.

My morning walk collages have become part of my ritual of walking our dog. Since we have been SIP for 42 days, there have been no excuses, appointments, classes, lunches, cultural outings, nothing to interfere with getting our exercise by walking the pooch. So every other day for 42 days I have been walking Mops, and taking photos of things that catch my eye along the way.

I started taking photos while walking, about 5 years ago, as a way to distract myself from the creaking & cracking of my bones and/or pain from my joints, while out walking. Because I am visually oriented, I see art in everything! So I started taking photos with my phone, while walking the dog. Using an app or two I collage the photos and post to my social media accounts on Instagram and Facebook.

Friends started commenting about how my morning walk photos inspired them to notice more on their walks, and so on and so forth; which to me is pure gravy! How these images have transformed my visual acuity is a whole ‘nother story. I really feel as if my morning collages have grown into an art-form, in of itself as opposed to how it started off taking photos to otherwise occupy my mind. So now, we are out there, every other day, hubs using his walker, and me walking the dog & taking photos. During SIP we have now walked 22 miles and taken a lot of photos of glorious spring blooms and cracks in the sidewalk.

The stitching of the morning walks came from my need to be doing something while I watch TV. I had already hand-stitched three morning walk collages, before the pandemic began. Yesterday I finished a fourth and now it is blocking. Then I printed out four more, because once the wide format printer is fed with cloth, one wants to keep printing!

So I have begun anew and am enthralled once again with the blanket stitch. The rock (above) was sliced from a larger stone, laid out in a pathway in one of the beautiful gardens we passed by the other day. Using the blanket stitch to fill in the crevices, I am already dazzled by the start of the stitching of another morning walk collage.

Of course the question always comes into play…what will I do with this? Others ask, but I tend to not put that pressure on myself. The destination does not matter, it is the journey that is important.

What I do know is the hand-stitching of my morning walk collages is definitely contributing to my mindfulness during the pandemic.