Embroidery
Library school involved quite a few scholarly journal articles and lectures about fairly dense topics (e.g. cataloging practices). In an average week, there would be something like 200 pages of content, in addition to several hours of lectures. They say that doodling helps people focus on consuming information because the act of doodling streamlines attention. It engages focus just enough so that it doesn’t wander from other sources of input (i.e. audio). Over time, I’ve found audio versions of readings/programmed my computer to read articles to me, and paired the audio with “mindless” tasks. This might involve addressing envelopes for our wedding, reorganizing a bookshelf, or dusting our houseplants.
Over winter break this year, I heard about the concept of a “flow” state, where the mind is so engaged in a task that hours pass imperceptibly. My mom has always done amazing embroidery and a friend recently picked it up as well, so I found some beginner sets on Etsy that came with everything I would need. This ended up being a huge help with my retention of school topics, and I would look forward to settling down each week with my sewing and a set of readings to get through.
Here are a few of the results from the last semester, as well as some other projects I experimented with while recovering from the shock of suddenly being done with school. The flowers are all from the beginner sets I bought. Two were for family members, and the one that says “Alice” was for our friends’ newborn. The Grogu one I designed myself (“this is the way”), and I adapted the bookmark design from a Book Riot cross stitch template I found at the library. It originally said “Stacks on stacks”, but I made it for my mom, so did her name instead. I used 28-count fabric though and will not be doing that again! Holy cow. The template recommended 14-count (the number of fibers per inch) and seeing it in the store, I thought it was too big. Turns out the experts know what they are talking about and my eyes are still recovering from the teeny tiny stitches this bookmark involved. Oof!
I think I’ll keep plugging away with embroidery because it is very meditative, especially when watching TV so I’m not just staring at a screen absentmindedly. But I also noticed that sewing triggers my tendonitis in my lower thumb joint, so will have to figure out the limitations of that and weigh them with my hand’s resilience for drawing, too. I don’t want a fun hobby to become an obstacle.
