Revisiting an Old Pasttime

I was inspired recently by a close friend of my daughter. She was describing how her older sister had been invited to two weddings this summer, and being a university student for about three years now, she had very little extra money with which to buy wedding presents. So, her grandmother offered to create two beautiful cross stitch pictures in frames that she could give as presents. I know her grandmother. She and I used to work in the same place. She retired just a year ago. I have been the recipient of two of her wonderful cross stitch designs for different occasions. Hearing about this got me to digging around and unearthing a cross stitch that I had started years and years ago.

I looked at the date on the "For the Love of Cross Stitch" booklet that the design came from and it was September 1989!!! My children weren't even born then. I wasn't even married then! Granted, the booklet may have been a year old or so when I purchased it and began the cross stitch, but still, this is a project that hasn't been touched in years.

This is the design to follow in the booklet.

I love the picture. It is everything autumnal. It features a scarecrow, home canning, apples, pumpkins, pretty leaves... I will likely hang it up all year, regardless of the subject matter, unless I make a different seasonal one with which I can interchange it.

This is my cross stitch, getting close to being finished...

The other reason I have rediscovered cross stitching is it gives me something to do with my hands in the evenings while watching something on tv. This is an alternative to shoving way too much food into my mouth. Let's just say that age and declining hormones have made it harder to lose and easier to pack on extra weight. Unfortunately, age also means that my once perfect eyesight is not so perfect anymore and I have to wear reading glasses (nonprescription, got them at Dollerama, refuse to invest more money because I refuse to accept that my eyesight isn't that great anymore!!) I perch the glasses part way down my nose so I can look down through them to see the stitches, but overtop of them to see the tv. Sigh.

I have done other cross stitching in the past. Some was given away (baby gifts), some packed away (Beatrix Potter designs that used to hang in our childrens' rooms when they were very little), and one still hangs in our home. I got it framed and still love it. It features spring violets and I really like the soft purple and green combination.

With my current project, I have all of my embroidery floss in a fantastic plastic box with dividers. Unfortunately I am running low on a very necessary floss that is a blackish brown which is used to outline various parts of the design. I checked our local Walmart which had a few colours of floss, but nothing even close to what I needed. The closest decent craft store (Michael's) is 45 minutes away and I can't justify driving 45 minutes there and 45 minutes back just for one tiny purchase. So I am stitching everything else and will wait until we need to go to the town where Michael's is located for other reasons as well and pick it up then.

I will post later and show you the finished project, hopefully framed.