DAY 629: STREP THROAT
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This week I have a slight flue and am feeling under the weather: cough, congestion, scratchy throat. But it’s not that that has me worried or on a flap: it’s the fear of a repeat bout of pneumonia. I don’t understand how I got it in the first place, so I don’t understand how I won’t get it again and I am terrified of having to take antibiotics because I’m still recovering from the last time. They really battered my body and I am fearful for her. 🍒
The red I wrapped around these sequins looks a bit like a tonsil enflamed by a virus or a solitary raspberry. I imagine my tonsils turning into raspberries as I sew and send love to them. 🥩
#1yearofstitches #oneyearofstitches #365daysofstitches #1yearofstitches2018 #embroidery #sewing #needlework #needlepoint #embroideredart #sewingprojects #arttherapy #needlepointart #thisprojectwillsavemylife #lemonrosepetals #myinsideout #embroideredtruths #mallorca #palmademallorca #calvia #puertoportals #balearics
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If you would like to learn 👩🏻🏫 how to sew like I do, using the thread to tell a story, reveal a secret, share a truth, heal a wound so deep you can’t physically reach it: contact me at myinsideout@me.com for details and to arrange a time ⌚️. I offer 1-2-1 👯♀️and Skype/FaceTime👩🏻💻tuition in 1 + 2 hour slots, competitively priced 💸. I also sell my work on etsy. See bio for link.
DAY 82: HELPING AND HEALING MY THROAT CHAKRA
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The 5th Chakra or Throat Chakra is associated with the colour blue. Its element is sound. It represents communication and speech and governs how you express yourself verbally. Its keywords are truth, communication, self-expression, creative identity (conscious), peace, spirituality, transformation and trust.
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The hole through which we satiate the needs of the mind and body, our throats are like portals (with megaphones attached!); conveying inner to outer; making insubstantial concrete and dreamscape real. When others don’t understand us or misinterpret what we are trying to say, it’s not only frustrating, it’s isolating, disconnecting us from our sense of self. So much of our foundation and our personal reality is dependent upon how others perceive us. If someone we have to interact with regularly sees us as something other than that which we desire, someone who is perhaps difficult, selfish, awkward or unpleasant, etc.. it hurts, eventually leading to self-recrimination and doubt and a loss of confidence with who we are inside. The throat reveals the barriers you have to clear communication and the gaps between what you say you want and what you want. A strong throat can help you to stand up for what you believe in, share yourself authentically, and be more balanced emotionally, releasing old conditioning, programming and beliefs. 🐉
If you often find yourself in conflict, lose momentum and track when communicating, sacrifice your truth for the truth of others and regularly fail to satisfy your basic inner needs, you may need to spend some time focusing on your throat in order to cleanse, balance, release and heal... what is currently trapped inside.
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Focusing on your throat will enable you to: communicate with ease and clarity; be true to yourself; stand up for yourself; speak your truth without apology; be more confident about what you say; listen to your own voice (and to the voice(es) of others); feel comfortable around other people (both one-to-one and in groups); be more friendly and open; trust more; challenge yourself daily; .....cont in comments...👇🏻
DAY 626: UNSHED TEARS AND YET TO BE RELEASED GRIEF
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I had a reunion today with a close friend after an absence of three months. She is the friend I went swimming in the sea with at the beginning of summer, and the friend I meet each week to sew with in one or other cafe. She has just returned from Barcelona, where she went to look after her mother who is in a home and who is sick, so that her sister, who usually looks after her, could go on holiday. Over the last two years we have shared many projects, as well as conversations. This week, instead of mending a cardigan or shortening a pair of trousers, she pulls out a hoop and a circular mat with a crocheted surround, wraps a torn pillowcase around the larger frame edge, and attaches the mat to it. It is a present for her mother, who has recently passed. On Friday, her family is holding a private ceremony on a mountain hilltop in the grounds of a small monastery and she has been instructed to bring a gift. Whether for the fire, the sea or a daughter or grandson... she doesn’t know; it is a close-kept secret. It strikes me as such a precious, beautiful idea, and one that can only help. Saying goodbye to someone who is dying of old age and terminal illness but who, for some reason, has not up until now been able to let go, has been a difficult journey. She has had two years of hopping on a plane, rushing to a bedside, witnessing anguish and pain. Her mother is at peace, free: it is what everyone wanted. But there is her, and her family’s, grief and pain. 🔥
As I watch her I sew what I think are roots, grounding and anchoring the newly created colour. But afterwards, on reflection, I think they look more like weeds – bright arms of coral reaching out to embrace a larger less vibrant reef of silver and gold, the sequins like underwater fish eggs, tadpole larvae, anaemic grapes or pealed lychee. There’s also the thought, feeling and form of unshed tears and yet-to-be-released grief. 🍇
#1yearofstitches #oneyearofstitches #365daysofstitches #1yearofstitches2018 #embroidery #sewing #needlework #needlepoint #embroideredart #sewingprojects #arttherapy #needlepointart #thisprojectwillsavemylife #lemonrosepetals #myinsi
DAY 624: A SLICE OF WATERMELON
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Green thread today; perhaps because my red looks a bit like a watermelon? 🥒
I pull a vibrant, forest-coloured length, because it calls to me, and get to some couching and knotting. It’s fiddly work and my thread keeps tangling. 🥑
There is energy in this circle, a bit like a fresh organic juice or a vegan salad bowl. Where other areas are gentle and curious, not quite clear about what they want to illustrate or impart, this one has no trouble speaking. I’m looking forwards to hearing it’s message and seeing how it develops.
🍏
#1yearofstitches #oneyearofstitches #365daysofstitches #1yearofstitches2018 #embroidery #sewing #needlework #needlepoint #embroideredart #sewingprojects #arttherapy #needlepointart #thisprojectwillsavemylife #lemonrosepetals #myinsideout #embroideredtruths #mallorca #palmademallorca #calvia #puertoportals #balearics
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If you would like to learn 👩🏻🏫 how to sew like I do, using the thread to tell a story, reveal a secret, share a truth, heal a wound so deep you can’t physically reach it: contact me at myinsideout@me.com for details and to arrange a time ⌚️. I offer 1-2-1 👯♀️and Skype/FaceTime👩🏻💻tuition in 1 + 2 hour slots, competitively priced 💸. I also sell my work on etsy. See bio for link.
DAY 620: A STACK OF PAPER AND A BOX OF PAINTS AND CRAYONS
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So I took a week off work this week to accommodate on other projects and give myself a break. Sometimes you’ve got to stir it up in order to come back with a clear head and I was feeling weighed down, trapped within the boundaries of this piece and a bit confused too by the direction it was going in. My focus has always been to take what is going on in my life and transpose it onto fabric; so when things get intense or leap off along a different path, they have a tendency to take everything along with it. What started as a way of processing pneumonia and healing from it’s side effects; a short term wading through of hospital-associated trauma and the cloud attached to coming face-to-face with my own mortality and lack of it... expanded as I discovered other things, unknown and unresolved, about my health and body. It’s time to taper that and tap back into my intuition, relaxing and letting it flow again. Working from my head all week on a personal project, reminded me of the joy that comes from indulging in a little light relief – like a child with a stack of paper and a box of paints and crayons.
🍁
As September expands, the weather is changing and it’s getting dark earlier and cooler at nights. These things give me the heebie jeebies. I need blue sky, sun above, warmth, heat, the flow of air on and around my body. I need to be able to swim outside, wear bare arms and feet, put ice in my drink. Autumn, winter, requires closed windows, radiators, artificial light and an extra layer or two. Eating raw is harder. Already, I’ve swapped my flip flops for flats and socks and I’m wearing a light jumper, and there’s a blanket on the bed with the sheet; the first of three, which will gradually join me over winter. Today, the sky is grey and peppered with rain, even though it’s humid. It’s waking all sorts of feelings about the days to come and the months of dark ahead. I stumbled upon a crate of ornamental squash this morning as I browsed the local market. It lit me right up. A good seasonal remedy is always a bit of interior design.
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DAY 612: CUTE, QUIRKY AND UPBEAT
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So here we are: the finished, almost, piece in her full glory. Can you spot the missing bit? I was almost but not quite done when I clicked. And since then, the weather has been frightful and there’s been no light. 🐕
As you can see, there are a lot more sequins. And I got carried away with the silver and gold. I like it, though. It’s cute, quirky and upbeat. 🐕
#1yearofstitches #oneyearofstitches #365daysofstitches #1yearofstitches2018 #embroidery #sewing #needlework #needlepoint #embroideredart #sewingprojects #arttherapy #needlepointart #thisprojectwillsavemylife #lemonrosepetals #myinsideout #embroideredtruths #mallorca #palmademallorca #calvia #puertoportals #balearics #thyroidhealing #Hashimoto’sthyroiditis #epsteinbarrvirus #autoimmunedisease #medicalmedium #anthonywilliam #phlebotomy ——————————
If you would like to learn 👩🏻🏫 how to sew like I do, using the thread to tell a story, reveal a secret, share a truth, heal a wound so deep you can’t physically reach it: contact me at myinsideout@me.com for details and to arrange a time ⌚️. I offer 1-2-1 👯♀️and Skype/FaceTime👩🏻💻tuition in 1 + 2 hour slots, competitively priced 💸.
DAY 604: SPARKLY BLONDE TIARA-WEARING TOY DOGS
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This week marks the 18th anniversary of my relationship with my boyfriend. Ideally, it would mark our 14th wedding anniversary too, but my partner fears the idea of being tied down, even to me: you should have seen how he resisted the mortgage and buying our first house, and how he fought forming any kind of bond with our first pet; how long it took until he could write a Will or open a joint bank account. When we decided to move abroad, it took a year for him to mentally align and then another to physically act. Like a seed, you have to plant and then gently step back. Patience and time have always been the best remedy, along with tenderness and love, but sometimes it can be hard doing nothing. Sometimes, I am like a horse chirping at the bit. He’s happy to own a house now and he loves and adores our dog. He’s even swapped his payroll and his boss for a life of freedom and autonomy. I guess it’s all about where you push and where you place your priorities and mine were always fur friends and travelling. Weddings and babies block all of that because they demand big lumps of cash. But each year when our anniversary comes around, I get a visit from my ten-year-old self, reminding me of my dreams of a big white wedding and a big sleepy suburban house and perhaps I get nostalgic and a few demons pop out. Other people plant seeds; and weeds, especially, like to grow. But recently I’ve stopped trying to avoid questions and caring about that... and I’ve stopped judging myself and feeling embarrassed and ashamed too. My life decisions and what I choose to or not to do, what I value, are only of concern to me. We are married where it counts and I know that only an accident or an illness will take him from me. Maybe we’ll get married on our deathbeds and it will be this big joke, putting our affairs in order before we come face-to-face with God? 👰🏻🤵🏻
As a gift, I’ve been working on this piece, which is roughly the size of my iphone. When it’s done, I plan to frame it in a lovely silver frame, which is just a bit bigger on all sides... cont in comments 👇🏻
Ever since I was little, I have always loved #apples. In the house where I grew up we even had an orchard with several different kinds of trees. My favourites were the tiny little ones that were about the size of an apricot and really sweet. I’ve always favoured homegrown and organic over mass produced, going out of my way to walk to a specific shop just to get the right ones. And when I found those... I could easily eat 6-8 in a day or as many as I could afford to get. Then I moved to a small island off the coast of Spain and, because of the humidity, the apples weren’t that great. In fact, most come in via ship, travelling in a solid state to be thawed on arrival. They are soft and brown inside with very little crunch and next to no flavour. When we arrived here four years ago, the loss of my daily apple was a big blow. I’ve been following the #Medicalmedium protocol now for a month, gradually easing myself in to all of the new ways and procedures, gently easing out the “no” foods. I’m not 100% there yet, but I’m doing well and feeling positive. I’ve been surprised by how easy it has been to adapt and by how tasty things like #celeryjuice and the #heavymetaldetoxsmoothie are, and how eating clean is changing my taste buds, making them more sensitive again. It’s helping me deal with cravings and to reduce things like oil and salt. And I’ve been adding #apples to my juices and smoothies every day and really enjoying that. This challenge has inspired me to be more creative and adventurous in my choices and it’s been fun searching out new good foods and taking pride in finding each item. I’ve always loved #fruit and always eaten it, practically living off it, bar dinner, at times in my life. And then four years ago the #fruitfear #trendytrap really hit and I found myself being told by medical practitioners and people in the health industry not to eat it because it was fruit that had helped to make me sick. I am so grateful to #AnthonyWilliam for bringing me back from this silly madness and for giving me my apples (and fruit) back. Fruit really is the best food on earth and apples, when you get a good one, are my favourite. @medicalmedium #28dayapplechallenge
DAY 602: FIT TO GRACE ANY DISNEY MOVIE
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These wild roses remind me of English country gardens and bedtime stories about wicked fairies and stepmothers and cursed and enchanted princesses trapped inside castles, most notably the tale of Sleeping Beauty and the poisoned spindle. And in some ways, I too feel like a slumbering princess, just recently awakened. Only the world that I remember isn’t the world that’s here now and the world that’s here isn’t as friendly as the world from before and I don’t feel the same and it’s hard because it’s so dirty and noisy and there are so many people and everyone’s unhappy or sick and it’s all just falling apart. 🌷
I want to rewind to simpler times: days when the streets were empty or you were the only person there; days when there were only a couple of cars and you didn’t have to look both ways to cross or wait for the traffic to pass; days when you could leave your bag on the seat in a cafe, nip to the loo and not rush, and it would still be there when you got back, exactly as you left it; days when people could be trusted, said hello, knew each other’s names; days from before I began, from another era. 🌹
In reverence to olden times and nighttime tales, I turn my sequin flowers into a wild briar, imagining it grown from the stones of the cherries charms that sit above, enchanted like the beans that grew Jack’s stalk. The petals are only a millimetre high and the leaves about the same, so there was lots of squinting, but they are fit, I think, to grace any Disney movie. 🌷
DAY 600: MY 19-MONTH-LONG SEQUIN LOVE AFFAIR
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Every so often I get woken from sleep by a nightmare that has me screaming. Not loud enough to wake the neighbourhood or often enough to worry or fear sleep itself, but enough to steal my peace of mind for a few hours at least several times a month. Last night’s night terror was of the traditional kind – I’m always either at home or at school: an adult navigating a child’s environment; terrified and trapped and fleeing a predator, usually human – and yet different; and what struck me was it’s clarity and wisdom. Like a mirror held up to a night-blinded rat: I suddenly saw clearly what I had struggled to see – in any way at all, clear or not – before, and with that sight came the biggest release because I finally realised that it’s not my fault, and all the layers of guilt which I had been shouldering because no one else felt remotely like sharing or carrying even one, fell off, leaving my neck free and my body light. I saw myself – as I am, as I have always been: lovely and perfect, in the way of an organic fruit or wild field flower.
🧟♂️🧟♀️
To celebrate, I sew a garden – couching around my cherry charms; adding vines and stems and buds and leaves. I’m quite in love with these sequin flowers, they feel like the perfect evolution for my 19-month-long sequin love affair.
🌻🌷🌹
#1yearofstitches #oneyearofstitches #365daysofstitches #1yearofstitches2018 #embroidery #sewing #needlework #needlepoint #embroideredart #sewingprojects #arttherapy #needlepointart #thisprojectwillsavemylife #lemonrosepetals #myinsideout #embroideredtruths #mallorca #palmademallorca #calvia #puertoportals #balearics #thyroidhealing #Hashimoto’sthyroiditis #epsteinbarrvirus #autoimmunedisease #medicalmedium #anthonywilliam ——————————
If you would like to learn 👩🏻🏫 how to sew like I do, using the thread to tell a story, reveal a secret, share a truth, heal a wound so deep you can’t physically reach it: contact me at myinsideout@me.com for details and to arrange a time ⌚️. I offer 1-2-1 👯♀️and Skype/FaceTime👩🏻💻tuition in 1 + 2 hour slots, competitively priced 💸. I also sell my work on etsy. See bio for link.
DAY 599: A GOLD STAR AND A PINK AND CREAM ORCHID
🤸🏻♀️
I have garnered so much respect for my body over the process of this project and also over the course of the last few years and I’d like to feel that this piece was a testament to that. Not having good health, not being quite yourself, feeling alien and uncomfortable in your own body... well, it has a way of doing that to you. Acutely aware of my own mortality, my fragility, the ends where my means meet: I am learning to be careful with my spoons; spoons being portions of energy available to any day. The twenty-something who could burn the candle at both ends, the thirty-year-old who felt invincible... are gone. I’m more like a septuagenarian: arthritic and withered. I went shopping with a friend the other day, who is, I guess, somewhere in her sixties, and she was the one helping me. It brings it home. 🕊
And yet there is a certain amount of peace in the surrendering. It’s the denial that hurts. In giving up my dreams of children, of a successful office-based career, of a loving, supportive family... I have released myself. So now I can sit all day and sew. Or write. Or draw. Or read books about things that interest me. Or just lounge in front of the tv doing nothing more than watching programmes and movies about people who either have it better or worse. And there’s no guilt. No need. No nagging voice spoiling my fun. Not everything has to have a purpose. The reason for doing can simply be relaxation or fun.
🔬
These sequins represent the work going on inside and the strength and resilience of my blood. Next time my doctor accuses my immune system of failing, of being kaput – which she does quite often and which I take personally because we are one and the same and because we have never failed at anything in our entire lives, not when we wanted it and when it was important to us – I intend to set her straight. These little dears are working extra hard, not slacking off, and they’re doing a splendid job. To celebrate, I add a gold star and a pink and cream orchid. I like this section, it’s oriental, elegant, soothing, and kind of magnetic. Like I can actually feel the power... 💉
Cont in comments 👇🏻
DAY 598: AUTUMN ANXIETY
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I got my first dose of autumn anxiety this morning and I’m not even sure why as it was 29 degrees outside at 9 am in the morning. I guess it’s the thicker clothes that have been appearing in shops and the slant in supermarkets on denser foods. Plus there are the 'returning to school' posters and the bulging stationary aisles, which remind me of childhood and end-of-summer melancholy. And maybe it’s not a bandaid that I loose today, maybe there are a few more weeks... but it has been cooler lately, especially at night, and I’ve been wondering if it’s time to get my blanket out. 🍁
I used to loose 6-7 months a year to this feeling and the inertia that crept up inside and I was thoroughly miserable and, sometimes, I’d end up in bed – bolstered against pillows, buried beneath blankets, surrounded by scented candles and wall socket table lights; reading, sleeping, occasionally braving the kitchen for supplies. 🍁
These days, it’s not so bad. The weather is better in Mallorca. The winters are more benign. You get to see the sun and there’s lots of blue sky. I’m not bedridden, either, which really helps, but it does get cold and because houses aren’t insulated or double-glazed, you feel it acutely. And in February there’s rain, so much rain. 🍁
To distract myself, I continue to work on my blood cells, adding some sequins and a few more silver lines. To me they symbolise all of the magic going on inside as I chomp on radish, apple and celery, sip at spirulina and barley grass shots, and drink my special juices. I think I’m noticing a difference, but I don’t want to jinx it by naming it too fast. 🍁
#1yearofstitches #oneyearofstitches #365daysofstitches #embroidery #sewing #needlework #needlepoint #embroideredart #needlepointart #lemonrosepetals #myinsideout #embroideredtruths #mallorca #palmademallorca #calvia #puertoportals #balearics #balearicart
#1yearofstitches2018 #thyroidhealing #epsteinbarrvirus #liverrescue #medicalmediumhealing #medicalmedium #anthonywilliam #phlebotomy
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If you would like to learn 👩🏻🏫 how to sew like I do, using the thread to tell a story, contact me.
DAY 596: HUMBLED AND GRATEFUL
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This week, I’ve been thinking about blood: not in the drinking sense, like a mosquito or a leach, and not like a vegan, either, with a craving for the reddest, rawest steak; but like a medical doctor, or a phlebotomist or a haematologist, with an interest in its purpose its and use. 💉
I know the basics: red blood cells carry oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body, white blood cells are our immune cells and provide protection against illness and disease, plasma contains important hormones, nutrients and proteins and platelets clot the blood. But I didn’t know that white cells are made inside the bone marrow, that some have a lifespan of only 1-3 days, and that they are then divided into further, separate subgroups, each with a different task [Monocytes to break down bacteria. Lymphocytes to create powerful antibodies. Neutrophils to kill and digest bacteria and fungi. Basophils to help control the body’s immune response. And Eosinophils to attack and kill parasites.]. Or what elevations and shortfalls indicate when it comes to tests, and I’ve yet to come across a doctor or a specialist who was patient and kind enough to spell it out. This sojourn has forged a deep respect, and I am humbled and grateful. Blood cells are busy little things and because what they do is vital, their health and optimum well-being is of the upmost importance too. 💉
In light of that, and to accompany me as I satiate my cravings on YouTube and Audible, I decide to create my own red and white cell using a tiny sterling hoop and a slightly larger plastic one. The silver thread then represents their activity and movement as they do their work and move around inside. Next time I focus on ramping up my immune system – which I do quite often in self-hypnosis and meditation towards the end of each day – I am going to picture my sewn cells instead of my real ones. In order to work on something to the degree that it manifests, external things responding with visible changes, I have to really believe in it. Picturing something I have made will make that easier, because I already know it intimately.
DAY 595: CELERY 🌱
Every morning I drink 16 oz of fresh celery juice on an empty stomach around half an hour after I have had my lemon water. It’s part of a new routine of which I’m two weeks in and, slowly, I’m getting used to it. I won’t lie, I still wake up starving, wanting to immediately cram something in, and warding off the temptation for a couple of hours is difficult; as is drinking the celery itself, which, depending on the bunch, I only sometimes like. But, as with everything, it gets easier by the day and it’s hard not to fall in love once you know all that it can do. 🌱
To honour my new routine and my appreciation of this plant, I stitch a stalk of celery. The colour is right and the shape is recognisable but I feel I failed it somehow. It needs a halo, a shimmer, and otherworldly glow... a smile, eyes and a giggle. 🌱
Beneath the stalk I add four sequins, connecting the celery to the sea and the seaweed, and further in the Candida zebra: all part of the same narrative, the same exploratory journey. Each a different shade of green, they represent all of the different minerals and nutrients that have been sourced and packed into the plant. 👇🏻
#1yearofstitches #oneyearofstitches #365daysofstitches #astitchaday #embroidery #sewing #lifethreads #lemonrosepetals #myinsideout #embroideredtruths #needleandthread #mylittlestitchery #mallorca #mallorcacreativity #mallorcaembroidery #palmademallorca #balearicart #1yearofstitches2017 #1yearofstitches2018 #thyroidhealing #epsteinbarrvirus #medicalmedium28daydetox #medicalmedium #anthonywilliams #celeryjuice #celery
DAY 595: CELERY
Every morning I drink 16 oz of fresh celery juice on an empty stomach around half an hour after I have had my lemon water. It’s part of a new routine of which I’m two weeks in and, slowly, I’m getting used to it. I won’t lie, I still wake up starving, wanting to immediately cram something in, and warding off the temptation for a couple of hours is difficult; as is drinking the celery itself, which, depending on the bunch, I only sometimes like. But, as with everything, it gets easier by the day and it’s hard not to fall in love once you know all that it can do. 🌱
To honour my new routine and my appreciation of this plant, I stitch a stalk of celery. The colour is right and the shape is recognisable but I feel I failed it somehow. It needs a halo, a shimmer, and otherworldly glow... a smile, eyes and a giggle. 🌱
Beneath the stalk I add four sequins, connecting the celery to the sea and the seaweed, and further in the Candida zebra: all part of the same narrative, the same exploratory journey. Each a different shade of green, they represent all of the different minerals and nutrients that have been sourced and packed into the plant. 👇🏻
#lemonrosepetals #myinsideout #mallorca #palmademallorca #thyroidhealing #epsteinbarrvirus #medicalmedium28daycleanse #medicalmedium #anthonywilliams #celeryjuice #celery
