I've been sloppy with my blogging lately, but my fingers have been busy!
Large Tribal Figures 4 and 5 are now finished (stitching part that is), and I've also begun a new format - narrow banners that are about 4 feet long. The first completed one is also shown in this posting.
I had a problem with Figure #4 - the felt was a gorgeous midnight blue, but was quite a bit thinner than the black that had been used on the others. So, I used some "Bondaweb" to fuse a piece of black cotton onto the back of the felt before stitching.
BIG MISTAKE! As I use a large eye needle for a lot of the stitching, it meant a lot of pulling because of the cotton layer on the back. Not a good idea if you are prone to "carpal tunnel syndrome" - as I am!
Result - hand in a strap for about four days and not able to stitch or play piano or hurdy-gurdy!
The inside of my wrist is still painful even after 2 weeks, and I'm having to wear the support at night just to ease pressure on the nerve. It's a real nuisance, especially when June 27th is looming, and I have a lot more to complete by then!
I'm going to make sure that the support fabric is a lot lighter next time - probably tea-bag paper would be ok. I'll try a bit on a test piece first though.
The "banner" pieces came about because I happened to have some long narrow pieces of felt lurking around. I'm toying with the idea of putting the finished felt piece onto a machine-stitched background - this will make then about 12 inches wide instead of 5". Not sure yet......
All I need over the next couple of weeks is some decent weather (ha ha! this is Wales!) so that we can get outside to do the necessary woodwork bits - bases and supports for the Figures. We've got all the boards, bits, router tables, jig-saws, blades etc ready - just waiting for a no-rain/no wind day! Well....one can hope!
At least I seem to have found my stride again - full steam ahead from now on.....
