Back to the Business of Cross Stitch

 One of the things I like to buy as a souvenir when I travel is a cross stitch pattern or kit relevant to the place I am visiting.  

One such kit was the lovely bookmark I purchased at the Westminster Abbey gift store back in 2005. It was a lovely project — the Aida fabric has a silky finish to it, the felt backing was thin and fine and the threads were top quality.  I have toted this bookmark around with me since I finished it.  I even reproduced it for a friend but the materials I used locally weren’t as fine as the ones in the kit.

So, a couple of years ago we took a trip to Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.  We tend to visit historically significant places and they all touch me but no place has touched me like Williamsburg.  I had a lot of trouble hobbling around with my sore knee but the kind folks at the park provided many benches for those of us who needed to sit (and there were a LOT of us) and I enjoyed sitting and just feeling the history around me.  But, I had to find the needlework area to purchases a kit of some sort.

I sent my daughter and husband off looking for the proper shop — I would catch up later — and they did find it and I did catch up and I was totally in awe of what the shop had to offer.  I don’t remember which shop it was but it had all manner of reproduction fabrics for period clothing and bedding and such.  I have long since abandoned quilting because I find it difficult with arthritis so I wasn’t interested in purchasing the fabric but I was so excited to find several cross stitch kits.

I settled on this one —

The vibrant colors spoke to me and the fabric included is similar in silliness to the bookmark fabric.

So, I started and put it away for various reasons and now I want to begin again and here is where I am.

And what a mess —

So when picking up cross stitch again after breaking my arm I realized that due to loss of use in my left hand (20-25% loss of usage) I was having difficulty using a q-snap.  It was bulky, awkward and heavy so I decided to do some stitching in hand.  It was better than the q-snap but I discovered that trying to keep the fabric tension my hand was getting really tired and achy.

As a result I started looking at traditional hoops.  I settled on this one from Hoop and Frame out of Austin, Texas

I even bought the fancy schmancy French made twill tape to wrap the inner hoop.  It was so lush!  So, now I am ready to get back to it.  

Part of the reason I put it aside was to do some little pieces for my granddaughter’s room — 

Those pieces were done from patterns I bought as pdf patterns and stitched using my iPad.  This Williamsburg piece is a paper pattern in four pages and I am considering taking a picture, putting it in GoodNotes and stitching without the paper.  I seriously hope I don’t have any problem getting back into the pattern because I really want to finish this one before I start anything else and yet……I am still collecting patterns!  I think that is just part of the joy of it!

That is what I am doing today. I got up this morning, took the Trixster for a walk using a new, short walking leash — hoping there would be less tripping — yeah, not so much. 

I then turned on the tv to catch up on the most recent dreadful news and then set about making lunch.  I roasted a chicken yesterday to have for a couple of days and supplemented with baked potatoes, salad and yellow squash.  We are “lunch” eaters so I have the kitchen mostly cleaned up, planned dinner for Skippy our resident fox and have been messing with the cross stitch.  

It has been a good day — fall was definitely here this morning, my husband cut the grass and it has just been a slow, easy day.