Are you having trouble threading the needle?

You start to notice, it's harder to be hand sewing darker colours, especially at night, the fine print is harder to see, and your eyes feel strained. Holding your work further away sort of assists but, threading the needle... It's hard enough to find time to sew without having to worry about being able to thread a needle.

Most of us will need reading glasses at some point, for the majority this will usually happen in our forties. As you move through the forties, fifties & sixties the natural lens of your eye thickens and becomes less elastic and slowly loses its ability to accommodate from far to near - and back again - this is known as presbyopia.

Many people will just pick up a pair of glasses from a chemist, service station or junk store and for a few these cheater glasses will work. But, if you have astigmatism, you will find it more precise and less tiring on your eyes to have lenses fitted with the correct prescription. When we have stigmatism our eyes are shaped more like a football, the cheater glasses are made with the assumption our eye is perfectly round.

Book an appointment with your local optometrist. Before the test, take notice of how you use your eyes:

• Where do you hold your sewing projects (up close or in your lap)?
• What is the approximate distance of the sewing machine from your eyes?
• Do you mostly sew during the day or at night?
• What sort of visual tasks do you do at your day job?

These tasks, which we perform daily, have different visual lengths - near, intermediate and distance. The optometrist can tailor your prescription and eyewear selection to your individual visual needs. If you do a lot of hand-work or sewing at night, consider having a pair of glasses made specifically for that task.

Even if you don't currently need glasses or contact lenses a routine eye test is recommended. The optometrist will not only look at the vision needs of your eyes, but they also look at the health of your eye and keep a watch for cataracts, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and other eye diseases.

In addition to eyewear also consider task lighting. The purpose of task lighting is to not only increase illuminance but also have good contrast. General lighting can be reduced when task lighting provides focused light where needed.

Different approaches for task lighting:

• Localised task lighting, where the lamp supplies both ambient light and task light
• Freely adjustable task light such as a gooseneck, balanced-arm lamp, or swing-arm light
• Magnifying task light, where the task light comes with a built-in magnifying glass
• Asymmetric task light, where the lamp is placed at the side of the work area

Task lighting can also be built into machinery, where a specific work area needs illumination. Many of the new sewing machines now have multiple LED lights across the body of the machine. Even if you don't currently wear glasses having good lighting while you work helps to reduce eye strain.

Related Posts:

What to consider when buying a new sewing machine?

mailart

Photos, paper, magazine, oil pastel & stitch

fabric, stitch & mixed media

fabric, stitch, paint, ink jet printed & mixed media

Enjoyed creating a couple more postcard size (4 x 6 inch) pieces.

ready to quilt

I was out at Boonah last weekend on a retreat with the girls, lots of laughs and creating had by all. I've been finishing off a couple of my traditional quilts this year as well. So last weekend while out at retreat I pieced together the fabrics for the back and drafted the quilting patterns and today I pinned all the layers together - so now it's ready to quilt and finish off. When finished it will take it's turn hanging in our library/sitting room (we converted one of the bedrooms to a library as part of our renovations).

red turkey for christmas

Redwork is one of my favorite traditional techniques and its also one of the oldest embroidery styles being most popular between 1885 and 1925. Any plain outline stitch is acceptable for Redwork with most being embroidered with "Stem Stitch". Embroidery stitch "Back stitch" is also widely used, and "Backstitch" is my preferred stitch. I enjoy the rhythm of stitch and the impact of simplicity, one color against a plain cotton background. The stitched portraits I'm working on at the moment while by machine have been heavily influence by Redworks impact of simplicity and the use of just one color.

The term Redwork was adopted because the majority of the embroidery designs were stitched with red thread - "Turkey Red Thread". Turkey Red Thread was one of the few colorfast threads you could buy in that time period.

In the above quilt I have hand stitched the Christmas pictures, machine pieced the pictures with borders and finished it off with both machine and hand quilting. Patterns for the pictures are as follows: The toy shop in the upper left corner is by Bronwyn Hayes the Holiday Elves are by Aunt Martha's for Colonial Patterns. The finished quilt measures 47" X 50" (120cm X 127cm).

Would just like to wish my visitors and followers a very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year. Many Thanks for your support and encouraging comments throughout 2010 the year of new beginnings.

moving ideas forward

Moving On - Stitch on paper

I'm quite enjoying doing the stitch on paper portraits. 

Timeout Please - acrylic & charcoal on paper

Also finished working on another painted piece.

This weeks - weekly Photo Project

One of my favorite traditional techniques is redwork/bluework. 

The embroidery stitch backstitch is used to create the designs.

Coloured Glass heads were the thing to buy from the homeware shops a few years back. Ours have become garden art. The morning light glows through our red lady as she watches over the chickens.