{"id":4217,"date":"2011-09-27T09:04:45","date_gmt":"2011-09-27T08:04:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=4217"},"modified":"2011-09-23T19:25:32","modified_gmt":"2011-09-23T18:25:32","slug":"another-landmark-on-christus-natus-est","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/2011\/09\/27\/another-landmark-on-christus-natus-est\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Landmark on Christus Natus Est"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Another<\/a>

Another Landmark on Christus Natus Est<\/p><\/div>\n

I’ve got to the point where the lower ends of the robes of Mary and Joseph have both been started, which also brings me very close to the other edge of the panel.<\/p>\n

It’s been a little slow of late, partly because the weather has been frightful – grey and overcast. Stitching goldwork in bright sunshine is a recipe for eye fatigue (learn from my mistakes, Gentle Reader!) but at the same time the rich red of Joseph’s robe and the purple of the Christ Child both become quite difficult as the day turns darker. I’m finding that if I want to make progress, everything else has to come second to doing a row or two when the light is good. Sometimes I’m so busy doing other things that I only realise quite late that I’ve missed the best of the light. Very frustrating!<\/p>\n

The other reason it has been slow is that I have so many needles in operation – ten of them! Every change of colour means putting one needle aside and picking up another, and while this is a tangible demonstration of progress, and therefore welcome, it does rather slow me down!<\/p>\n

I’ve been talking recently with a friend who has been trained in icon painting, and it’s fascinating to hear about the layers of meaning and symbolism in the materials, preparations and even in the process. I’m working so hard on developing a technique here, that I’m not necessarily managing to turn my version into a spiritual exercise as well, although I do sometimes feel that I’m not a million miles away from stitching-as-meditation.<\/p>\n

Well, St Benedict said “Laborare est orare” (“To work is to pray”). So maybe I’m onto something, after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve got to the point where the lower ends of the robes of Mary and Joseph have both been started, which also brings me very close to the other edge of the panel. It’s been a little slow of late, partly because the weather has been frightful – grey and overcast. Stitching goldwork in bright… Continue Reading Another Landmark on Christus Natus Est<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[56,158,59,26],"class_list":["post-4217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-goldwork","tag-christus-natus-est","tag-goldwork","tag-or-nue","tag-silk-thread","radius"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4217"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4273,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4217\/revisions\/4273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.virtuosewadventures.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}