Injuries

I recently re-posted an old blog entry from my Myspace page about sewing through my finger while costuming “Meshuggah-Nuns.” Well, that wasn’t my only crafting injury and not my worst either.

During my work for “The Sound of Music” I cut my finger pretty badly with a rotary cutter. This is a pretty common quilting injury as the rotary cutter is a very popular quilting tool. I was cutting strips to make suspenders for Lederhosen when the blade slipped over my straight-edge and through my left pointer finger. I cut a nice slice off, but not really enough to require stitches. It did however bleed a lot and I had to call a friend to come over and help me out because I was on the verge of passing out.

It was a huge inconvenience because I couldn’t use that finger for several weeks right in the middle of my big push to get all the costumes made. You never realize how important a finger is until you can’t use it. But it’s recovered quite nicely.

Some other injuries I have sustained while crafting include a nice burn on my forearm I received while ironing costumes for “The Foreigner.” I also had a significant hot glue burn on my leg from glue dripping on me while making a hat for “The Spirit of the Iao.”

Injuries happen and I find that most of mine have been due to rushing. If I had just pinned what I had been sewing rather than holding things in place, I wouldn’t have sewn through my finger – but I was rushing and trying to save time. And my advice for the rotary cutter is not to take it lightly and to make sure you think everything through before you do it – and be really cautious about finger placement.

Another Old Post from MySpace

Do you need stitches when you sew through your finger (November 16, 2005)

So I have been toiling away, sewing in this sweatshop...okay, it's just the women's dressing room at the Iao Theater, but it is darn hot down there. But anyway, I have been working hard in my free time making nuns' habits for the Meshuggah-Nuns! musical that opens Friday (Nov. 18 - Dec. 11, Fri-Sat 7:30pm, Sun 5pm), and yesterday I managed to not only sew the habit that I was working on, but through my finger as well. OUCH!! Fortunately I missed both the bone and the nail, and because it was a sewing machine needle it was quick and straight, and there was very little blood and almost no wound. But it still hurts and it is making this hard to type. Luckily it was on my left hand, but unluckily it was the pointer finger, and I never really realized how much I use my left pointer finger.