The trigger finger on my left hand continued to irritate, annoy and hurt. Immobilizing it with stretchy wrap kept it from hurting, but it was weird wearing what was essentially a soft splint on the hand all day and night. Not conducive to knitting or weaving of course. Friday I went to see an orthopedist. They told me a few things that I knew and a few things that I didn't know:
- As my experience shows, people who tend to get these things discover they move around the hand. That is, you get it in one joint, then later (for me many years later) they show up in other joints.
- I should not have immobilized it. That leads to a stiffening of the tendon.
- The bump that was keeping the tendon from sliding through its tunnel was actually in my palm.
- That the cortisone shot into my palm was unpleasant.
- That they can redo the cortisone shot up to three times before they will have to resort to some minor surgery. When I had my last trigger finger, in my right thumb about 12 years ago, they told me you could only have one cortisone shot and that additional shots would damage the tissue of the tendon.
So today I am in a foul mood because the finger is very painful and stiff and I now know not to splint it, which would stop it from hurting. And that holding that expensive new bag of cat food -- the newly recommended Blue Buffalo Wilderness -- in my left hand while the ziplock closing suffered a failure meant $18 worth of cat food was spilled all over the kitchen floor. Before my first cup of coffee.
Fortunately, cats are not Labrador Retrievers. My dog would have promptly vacuumed up weeks worth of food in about 5 minutes. The cats ran for cover and I swept. But my hand hurt, and I had not had coffee. Not my best morning. On the other hand, when I went out to pick up the newspaper and dump yesterday's coffee grounds around my new azaleas, I discovered the temperatures last night had dropped below 70 degrees. Ahhhhhhh. The windows are open and it feels great. It won't last -- it will get up to 98 degrees today, but what a nice discovery this morning.
So, what have I been doing, since I have not been able to knit or weave? I have relapsed into compulsive reading. In The Artist's Way Julia Cameron argues that "blocked" creative people often avoid creative production by reading. It is an engaging thing to do, a mark of intelligence, considered a good thing... but you can't write your own book if you spend all your time reading other people's. And it is certainly true that when I fall back into constant reading, I do not do other things. But then again, it doesn't hurt my hand to read. So I found Isobelle Carmody's Obernewtyn Chronicles and read the first 4 volumes before calling a time out.
I have also been working on this. It is an Erhman needlepoint kit called Klimt Coral, one of a series done by designer Candace Bahouth. The interesting thing, for me, is that Bahouth trained as a tapestry weaver first. I bought and started this kit so long ago ... maybe 10 years ago? I would work on it, put it away, pull it out two years later, work on it, put it away for years... Now, though, I am almost finished with it, and very interested in how similar and how different it is from tapestry weaving. I have fallen into my usual compulsive ways and have read very widely about needlepoint, designing your own, canvas and threads, etc etc. Bahouth has also come out with some new Klimt-based designs that are very beautiful. There is also another designer who works with Ehrman who creates beautiful projects -- Raymond Honeyman. One of his kits is on sale right now, and my finger (not the painful one) has been hovering over the Buy button for a few days.
What is weird is that I am conflicted about these kits, or even using painted canvases. If I adore the design, why should it bother me to stitch them? Where does this weird disapproval of stitching someone else's design come from? For several centuries, tapestry weavers wove designs created by painters. But I am definitely wrestling with a voice in my head that says this is not "properly creative." Silly, isn't it? I use patterns when I knit (some of the time). The Honeyman needlepoint project I am interested in is a kit -- it will come with a printed canvas and with wool tapestry yarn. Another way folks do needlepoint is to buy a painted or printed canvas, and choose their own threads (and perhaps choose their own stitches and embellishments). And then of course, you can design your own.
In a book called Contemporary Embroidery there is a chapter on Lloyd Blanks, a man who created spectacular paintings using just a version of a basic needlepoint stitch. I can't find any images of his work online, but they are amazing. As are many of the other works in the book. If you are into other fiber arts in addition to knitting and weaving, you might want to try to get your hands on a copy of this book. I then found the work of Netty Vanderpol, an artist and Holocaust survivor who works in needlepoint to create very modern and stark work. (Edited to add link to Every Stitch a Memory, a wonderful article about Vanderpol with some good pictures of her work.)
So I think I will do what I want. (:D Not an unusual decision chez Rob.) I will (maybe) buy a Honeyman kit for an amazing design I would like to do and would like to own. I will, I think, consider using needlepoint for designs of my own, some of which might not be quite appropriate for tapestry weaving. But first I am going to have some more coffee, and some ibuprofen, and consider sulking a bit about my painful hand.
