Tuesday, 19 November 2019

Forced Break!

I'm so annoyed!  I kept hoping it would go away... but no.  I definitely have a problem.  It's been going on for nearly three months now and is getting worse.  I have tendonitis in my left elbow.  And I've sadly had to come to the conclusion that I really need to rest that arm and stop tatting and knitting for a little while in the hope that it will cure itself.  I can't tell you how frustrated I am!  And I've no doubt made it worse by waiting rather than acting sooner.

I'm now grateful that earlier in the year,  I made loads of sample of my last two snowflake designs while I was testing the patterns so that I have enough to put in my Christmas cards for friends and family without having to tat anymore.

I can't tell you how difficult I find it to sit in the evening and not pick up my shuttles or needles!

Grrrrrrrrr!

In the meantime I am carrying on with my university projects involving really large lace.  I've been using 3mm and 4mm rope to make motifs and last week I made a mould of one of the motifs.  

 I put a penny on the lace to show scale
(tatted with 3mm nylon rope)


I made a clay "box" and pressed the large lace into it.
Then poured silicone in the box to make the mould.



You can see the lace still embedded in the silicone below.  I have not removed it yet as I am wondering about making a two-part mould.  To do this I would make another clay box around the silicone, and then pour more silicone on top to make the second part of the mould.  But the complexity of the lace might make it too difficult to pour any material into the mould in a way that would fill all the little spaces.




I liked the imprint left in the clay...
and decided to make a plaster moulding of it:

The detail of the imprint is amazing.
You can see all the texture of the rope.


I'm really enjoying all this experimentation and looking for new ways to use tatted lace in my design ideas.

Best wishes,
Frivole

11 comments:

  1. Oh no! I’m so sorry. Sadly I can relate... maybe it’s tatting with rope/cord? The plaster mold turned out beautifully. It could be a wonderful wall hanging? Painted?

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  2. The mold looks great, I am sorry to hear of your "break". I had some issues earlier this year and it was while I was using a size 10 thread which I rarely do. Now that I have moved down to my more familiar size 30 and 40 I do not have that pain in my hand anymore. I hope the rest works for you.

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  3. Sorry to hear you have to rest, but it might be a good thing!
    Love your giant tatting and learning about your experiments!! :)

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  4. Sorry you have to take a break, I hope it solves the problem! Love your experiments with large lace, really impressive. Could be the way to go for clothing and things like table mats.

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  5. I understand your frustration. I seem to have problems when I start working with larger threads/yarns. I'm not sure why that is so, but rest, finer fibers, and limited crafting time seem to work best for me. I hope you're able to get back to what you love soon!

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  6. Dear Frivole,
    I was sad to hear about your tendonitis....would you consider using homeopathy? We saw that Symphytum 200 and Arnica 200 each taken 2x/day was recommended for tendonitis. We have had really really good results using these and wished that perhaps they might be of help to you as well. May you be Well! Allyson

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  7. You poor thing! Rest is good - but so is a proper diagnosis, my big recommendation is to get it checked by a doctor who knows what they're talking about if you haven't already to make sure that's what it is and there isn't something else that would help it heal faster as well as the rest. There's an upside though - you certainly need to give it a complete rest from any chores you don't like, don't you? They do aggravate it so! :-D

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  8. Oh no - I’m sorry about the tendonitis! Let it heal well, though I know how frustrating it is to avoid what you do so regularly. The project looks interesting, the large rope really shows the detail of the tatted stitches. The mold looks so good also! Best wishes 💕

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  9. I feel your frustration and I just hope it heals quickly, I had a similar problem earlier in the year and to be forced from knitting and tatting is not good.
    Take care and rest the arm, look forward to seeing new work if and when its healed.

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  10. bravo, c'est génial comme expérience

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  11. Thank you to everyone for your comments. Sorry for some reason I was unable to comment on my own blog for a while! I'm now seeing a physiotherapist... sadly no noticeable improvement yet :-(

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