One's state of mind

I had an altercation with another driver today and it wasn't even me who had cut them off it was the driver ahead!  Oh boy, it left me shaken and anxious.  I had to teach straight after this so I took myself to a little coffee shop near to Embroiderers Guild to calm down.  This is located in an old Nissan hut and out the back there are mesh walls and the space between this and the surrounding properties is planted with palms and tree ferns.

I had been thinking about the relationship between ones mental state and how this affects ones stitching.  At one school I taught at we didn't have enough sewing machines for each student so half of the class did some hand stitching and the others were at the machines.  It was very obvious that the hand stitching had a calming affect on the students.  They moved from one task to the other and there was very little frustration.  Which is often in constrast to classes where there was adequate sewing machine.

I was also reading Jenny Hart's book Embroidered Effects and she also commented on the fact that stitching slowed everything down.  Today I watched the You Tube promo for the Japanese embroidery exhibition in Adelaide and here the Sensa commented that for Japanese stitchers stitching has a spiritual component. (I found the link at Pam's blog.)  He struggled with the 'state of mind' of western embroiderers until he introduced  a session of meditation at the beginning of each session.

 

So after my upsetting morning my quite time in the coffee shop garden helped to still my soul.  I took this understanding into my Kogin Embroidery class and intend to use a quite time before I stitch in future.

Comments

[Rachel]

I usually find the stitching generates the "quiet time" for me. My husband says I often seem quite settled in my own little world when I'm embroidering!

[Carolyn Foley]

I always knew stitching calmed me now I know it is even better if I bring a calm me to the stitching.