Week 9 – Slow Stitch for 30 Minutes a Day
How often do you hear the phrase “I don’t know where the time goes!”. How fast the week goes by. Our attention span is only seconds now. This week’s project has been a sheer delight. Just a piece of white cotton fabric. An embroidery hoop. A needle and a length of embroidery thread. Just a single strand.
No television, no radio, no podcasts. Just a quiet uninterrupted 30 minutes set on the timer on my phone. Just to see where it takes me.
Trust Your Instinct
I had no plan. No prior drawing in mind. No subject matter. I just started with a simple running stitch. But just one stitch at a time. Initially I felt like I was taking a walk into a space I had not visited before. After the first 30 minutes I realised I had not made any straight lines. I felt like I was taking a walk around the garden. Following a footpath. Coming across borders and flower beds.
Listening to the Stitch
With each session I turned the work around so that I was not drawn to a particular image. It continued to evolve. Each stitch quietly made. I became aware of the sound of the needle piercing the fabric. And the thread drawn between the woven fibres of the cotton fabric. I didn’t care about the time it took. The timer sounded at the end of the 30 minutes. It seemed longer than 30 minutes. 30 precious minutes. 30 minutes where I became fully absorbed in the simple act of making a running stitch count.
The Slow Movement
.. is all about making a connection. It attempts to address the very serious issue of “time poverty”. For myself it was a conscious act to slow down for these 30 minutes each day. By day 4 of this week’s project I was looking forward to the moment I would pick up the needle and thread again.
There is plenty of unused space on my length of cotton fabric and I will continue to find those 30 minutes each day to make this process part of my on-going practice. I can see further potential for the image I have created this week.