Splints

It's a bit weird that I strain my thumb joint working on something that is supposed to be helping my thumb joint, I know. Actually, however, it started to feel a bit better most of the time and I took enough breaks to not make it any worse. Maybe I'm learning after all, who knows?

I'm talking about the splints I got. I don't like wearing them, but if I have to wear them at night, they might as well look nice ... because who's asleep at night. Maybe it's just the feeling they are different.
It's funny, I chose black ones because they are the least flashy and then I suddenly decide they need some color, a lot of it.

I just learned fly stitch, but you can't see much of it here as I had so many shorter floss leftovers and couldn't stop myself. I wish I could grow flowers like that for real 😉
At the time I hadn't planned to embroider the strap as well or I would have tried to make it match a bit better.
The length of the strap obviously asked for some kind of vines or rambling roses, though, (even if they are rambling sideways), and still being obsessed with French knots and having acquainted myself with the feather stitch as well, the roses sounded perfect.
These actually used up all the colorful leftovers I had so far - you have to keep in mind I only just began this journey quite recently - and thus my Swabian heart was very happy 😂

I definitely wanted something different for the second splint, though, and since the splints are not specifically for the right and left hand, the strap on the right hand is mostly on my palm, so I had to come up with something that would work with the other side. Of course I can still embroider the second side of each splint if I should ever feel the urge for it.

Are you surprised that my mind went to cats right away? It's possible that des Dekan's funny little bunny feet were an additional inspiration.

What do we love about cat feet? Beans!

It was a good thing that I gave the one on the left a few black spots because that way it wasn't a problem to give it two more - after poking my finger with the needle for the third time without noticing before I had already bled on the paw!
Can you believe I actually wondered why there were two different pinks (the red had lightened to a dark pink on the floss) on the paw? 😂

Then I needed something for the part of the strap that's showing - another cat of course!
That one was really tough to do, especially the parts where I stitched over stitches over difficult background, so she's by no means perfect, but it was good practice and I think she's still rather cute.
If you wonder why the eyes are a bit shifty, sigh, what can I say - more blood I had to hide, but this time I pretty much ran out of the dark grey floss of which I only had half the usual length. I like to think kitty is winking at me.

I'll let you know if I ever do something to the other sides, but I have to admit that it was tough as this isn't exactly an easy surface to embroider onto, so I don't see myself doing it very soon if at all. There were all the little black bits sticking up, some parts were padded too thickly to even get through at all, some were a bit hard to get to or I could only get through using pliers.
Also there are so many other things to do!

The thumb and I

More embroidery?
You may wonder if that is a new craft/hobby frenzy. It wouldn't be unusual to go wild with a new technique that you have just discovered for yourself. I'm no exception although I have always tried to keep it mixed up, but it's hard not to succumb the excitement and adventure of new experiments ;-)

There is another reason for this flood of embroidery, however.
I have rhizarthrosis in both thumb joints, not that bad yet in the right one, but the left one has really been acting up for a while now. I'm right handed, but my left hand has to do a lot of the grabbing, holding and keeping tension which seems to be the harder part.
That meant more breaks, much shorter crafting sessions, days completely without crafting, and some things are right out at the moment, wire for example, and even beading makes my thumb move in the wrong way. It's frustrating and my friends are probably sick of my whining by now.
I haven't tried out yet how well bead looming will be working for me right now, but I have a plan for bead embroidery - well, and then there's the hand embroidery.

I quickly found out that holding my hoop is a bad idea, actually that's what started my thumb being angry at me. I know I should have taken more breaks a long time ago, but it's really hard for me to stop myself once I'm going.
When I purchased my course for the silk shading flower, though, it said I needed a stand for being able to use both hands freely, and that made a big difference.

It doesn't mean that I can have as long sessions as I used to, it also doesn't mean there isn't any pain at all, but there's no doubt, hand embroidery is the easiest technique for me to do at the moment.
So I got myself a second stand with different sizes of exchangeable hoops and used the smallest of them to make several pendants which couldn't be more different from one another.

1. At my jewelry forum, the Jewelry Artisans Community, we currently have a challenge with the topic "Music" going and I made a happy little musical pendant for it. Don't try to sing the tune ;-)

2. This was an experiment that came from a different idea that is still lingering in the back of my head.
I'm getting abstract 60s vibes from it which is helped by the shape, and I have to say it was fun making it as I could just let loose.

3. Yeah, not a big surprise here. We all knew there would be at least one cat pretty quickly during my embroidery journey, I just didn't know it would become kind of a caricature until I couldn't resist making really big eyes.

4. The last pendant has a backstory.
I have mentioned before that I live in Göppingen which is situated at the bottom of the Hohenstaufen, one of the "Drei Kaiserberge" (literally translating to "Three Emperor Mountains"), together with the Rechberg and Stuifen.
They get their name from the Hohenstaufen dynasty - the "Staufer" - of which Frederick Barbarossa is probably the most famous. They had a castle on the Hohenstaufen, but there is only very little of the foundation walls left (it is said that the city castle of Göppingen was partially built from stones from the castle ruins).
This is my hommage to our mountains and their long history.
Of course they don't lie that close together in reality (pictures under the link above) as in our city logo ...

... or in my pendant.

So yeah, I guess you will have to put up with more embroidery in the near future.
I will not drop the wire and the beads, though, and hope ice packs, splints, and more rest will be able to help me with that!