Cherry Blossoms and Leaves

 I spent over two hours working on my Japanese embroidery yesterday, and I was reasonably pleased with my progress. My cherry blossoms were fatter, and my leaves were neater and more elegant:

I was particularly proud of the last green leaf I stitched — the lowermost one in the center. I think the angle on the stitches is just right, and the edges are pretty neat overall. I'm definitely getting better at those.

The cherry blossoms are okay. They're definitely fatter, but making them fatter meant ignoring the pattern lines, which was not always successful. Some of them came out a little lopsided. One petal in particular (on the far left blossom) came out dreadfully uneven, but I couldn't bear to take it out at the time. I was just too tired. It's really hard for me to work on this for more than an hour or so because my back starts hurting pretty badly. The only reason I managed two-plus hours yesterday is because I put an ice pack on my back after the first half hour or so. That helped a lot. 

I have a bad back in general. I was in a car accident several years ago and got a multi-level whiplash injury. My back has never been the same since. It goes out about once or twice a year and renders me helpless, bedridden, and in pain for about a week to ten days. 

It could also be that my setup isn't ideal. I just have my embroidery stand propped up on two TV trays:

It may be too high or too low, which could be exacerbating the back issues. I should probably fiddle around with it. Though this is apparently a pretty common set up for JE stitchers. 

You can also see my little helper in the background. Normally Beau wants to be on my lap at all times, but I just can't do JE with him there, so he grudgingly settles for the back of the chair.

Anyway, this morning, I did another hour or so of JE, using an ice pack the whole time, which made things much more bearable. I just did one more cherry blossom:

I tried to make these petals more even, but they're still not great. I suppose that's what I get for not following the pattern. But I was trying to follow the advice given me on the JE FB group. Sigh. Only one more cherry blossom to go. Maybe I'll get that last one right. 

And I did finally find the motivation to take out half of that really dreadful petal from yesterday's blossom. I'll redo it the next time I work on this and try to make it more even.

Anyway, that's what I've done so far. I think it's pretty overall. And it looks a little better in real life. These are super close-up photos so every mistake stands out. With a little more distance, most of my mistakes aren't as noticeable.

I still don't know what to do with these, though:

My little silk ends just sit in this dish. I'm wondering if there's a use for them. I need to ask around. One vegan on another FB group heavily implied that by using silk, I was "killing animals just so I could sew." 😂 (By "animals," I assume she meant insects — #notthesame.) But I suppose I should try not to waste them if they can serve another purpose. We'll see. 

I'm still working on getting a JE teacher. The one I contacted was thinking either Zoom or FaceTime via phone. I already know the FaceTime option won't work for me. It's so blurry and pixelly on my phone that I have no hope of ever being able to see tiny, precise stitches that way. But hopefully we can make Zoom work for us.

In the meantime, I asked about JE blogs on my JE FB group this week to see if I could get some good tips via that route. Mostly I got info about blogs I was already following, but I did learn of one or two others, and I made some good contacts who have offered helpful tips. 

Hands down, the best JE blog I know of is Threads Across the Web, which Carol-Anne Conway writes. She gives lots of detailed explanations and tips along with close-up photos that I find super helpful.

I also follow Dima Santina's D1-D2 blog, which she updates a couple times a month. She is very helpful and kindly responded to some questions I had and provided me with links to JE videos.

I also follow her and several others on Instagram, though that is mostly for inspiration since there are rarely any detailed explanations or tips on Insta. But at this point, it's just about using whatever resources I can find to help me in my JE journey.