WIP, New Start, and Pain

Here is my update on Teresa Wentzler's Wedding Sampler as of May 25th. I decided to try doing the backstitching as I go along, rather than holding it all off until the end. Teresa Wentzler designs have a lot of backstitch in them. I've read information from many stitchers who do the backstitch as they go along to cut down on how much they have to do at the end, usually because they hate backstitch. I don't hate backstitch because I love how it makes a design look. But I figured I'd give the "do it as I go along" thing a try and see if I like it and if it works well. I'm a bit worried that as I move the hoop around the backstitch will become warped, or break (its only one strand), but so far it looks good!

This is a picture of a completed Mirabilia design called "Crescent Dreams". It is one of the discontinued "Little Stitches" line of charts. This is the design Stephanie (my sister-in-law) chose to be a birth sampler for Bridgette (my niece). It said that it had a conversion for pink for a girl, but there isn't a full conversion. Instead the blanket is a purplish blue with pink dots in it for a girl, or purplish blue with blue dots for a boy. So I had to play with different pinks to try to find 5 shades that worked well together to make the entire blanket and hat pink.

The above picture is of my test stitching using the first selection of pinks that Stephanie and I chose. I did not like them as the color variations were too stark from one another, rather than blending naturally from one color to the next, there was a sharp contrast involved. So we chose not to use those colors. (I needed 5 shades of pink from very dark, to very light)

This was the second set of pinks we tried. As with the first set I did some test stitching on plain white jobelen 28ct to see how it would look and whether the colors worked well together. These did, and both Stephanie and I liked how they looked, so these were the colors we chose to go ahead with.

Now that we had the pinks chosen (and pinks that worked well together I think) I went ahead and started the project on the hand dyed fabric I had purchased for it. This is being stitched on "Rock A Bye" 28ct Jobelen from Silkweaver's Fabrics. This picture is a little dark, but it still shows how well the pinks blend together and work together. I am so very happy with how this is looking! This is my progress as of May 25, 2009. I hope to make more progress today as I have not done my stitching yet today.

Last week was not a good one for me. For some reason at 4AM on Wednesday morning I woke up in extreme pain to find myself laying on my stomach. Apparently I had rolled onto my stomach while I was sleeping and slept that way for a while. I do not know for how long, but I do know that sleeping on my stomach is a very bad thing for me. I woke up because I was in extreme pain and I had symptoms in the right side SI joint, which is unusual for me, at least to have that much pain in the right joint. I usually have that kind of severe pain only on the left, though the right has started to have some pain at the top of the joint when I stand on my feet (cooking dinner or something like that). Now I have sciatica on both sides and in both legs, both joints are popping/snapping and sending sharp shooting pains out, both joints are hurting all the time though the left is still more severe than the right. Anyway, because of the sleeping on my belly thing I ended up spending the end of last week and most of the weekend in bed trying to get the pain under control.

This really scares me. The doctors have told me for years that the right side is not healthy either and that eventually it will cause me as much trouble as my left. When I had the second fusion attempt on the left side I was told that I would probably need a wheelchair within 5 years because the right side was getting progressively worse. Well it has been 10 years since the second attempted fusion, so I got more than 5 years which I guess is a good thing, but the continued symptoms in the right joint still scare me. When the left side hurts a lot, I lay down on my right side and take the pressure off the left. Now when I do that, the right side starts to hurt worse. If I sit up, both sides hurt from the pressure of sitting on my bottom. If I lay on my back both legs get severe sciatica symptoms (numbness, tingling, shooting pains, muscle spasms etc), and well laying on my stomach is just out of the question. So now I am scared that if these newer symptoms on the right are permanent, how the heck am I supposed to ease my pain? Get hung up by my ankles from the ceiling or something?

Dealing with my pain the way it is usually is bad enough. Some days are just horrible and I always hurt extremely badly during my periods. I just don't know if I could handle having that same level of pain on both sides of my pelvis, I really don't think I could.

Sorry about ranting about my back, I just needed to get it out. Here's hoping I will have another update on stitching tomorrow, when I finish my stitching for today.