All Stitched Up

I have something to tell you. I have been cheating on knitting. BIG TIME!

I've barely even kept up with all my knitting podcasts. Did I hear you gasp? I know.

What have I been doing? I've been sucked into the world of Cross Stitching (again). It's funny how I cycle through different crafts and after a while they start to repeat. There was a brief idea to start needle punch rug hooking while I was away on vacation. But I'm not really at the financial place to be investing in new tools and stash at the moment.

So yes, CROSS STITCH. AGAIN!

How exactly did I get sucked back in cross stitch? One. Word. Flosstube.

Weeeeeeell. It's been something I pick up from time to time, but haven't really blogged about other than my initial personalised floppy disks, mixtape, and first, slightly wonky cross stitch sampler.

Though, I've been quite terrible about blogging anything in the past number of years. Trying to be better at that.

Turns out I have quite a bit of cross stitch that I've done over the years.

Watch out, this first one includes A CURSE WORD! Repeated MANY times!

I have this potty mouthed piece from a pattern by Chawne Kimber which was kindly sharing back in 2011 (no longer available, sorry!). I used some Sajou heavily starched linen bought at Purl Soho and some thrift store small crochet cotton that was interestingly stained on the outside of the ball. Crochet cotton worked pretty well for stitching, though it had a tendency to tangle. I don't recall when I started stitching this, but I know I finished it when we were staying at a country house in Estrie, in the Eastern Townships of Quebec in August of 2014. I even have a picture of me stitching it while sitting on a porch!

I loved stitching this potty mouthed piece in such a bucolic setting!

Since then I've pretty much only worked on patterns that Alicia Paulson has released usually as kits. There are a couple that I've kitted up myself, but I haven't started those ones yet. My rule is only one in progress cross stitch at a time. Mostly because I have one really nice twill taped embroidery hoop that I like to use. Once you get used to nice things, it's hard to use other stuff.

I'm pretty sure I started this Sweetiepie ABCs as soon as I got the kit which might have been in May of 2015? And I must have finished it in the summer or fall of 2016. Spring Ring had come out as well as 'Night Neighborhood. And I had to finish up so I could start the next one.

This one was super fast, but I realised that I dislike only using colours for a few stitches before changing to another one. Good to know for future cross stitch work.

'Night, Neighborhood was one of my favourites. I love all the bugs and moths in this one. Moths will be a recurring theme from now on. Though this one became a bit of a slog because of how spaced out all the stitched bits are. More things to learn about my stitching preferences.

Finishing 'Night, Neighborhood and hearing Michele at the Striped Rose say that work isn't finished until it's signed and dated had me bring out all my finished pieces, figure out when I finished them and sign them. As an aside, hers is one of my favourite flosstubes! I have to pace myself because I'm running low on episodes.

This week my Mom and I hit up the crazy amazing Antique Mall here in Edmonton and we went nuts finding ALL the reasonably priced interesting frames or framed pieces that we could find in the joint. I managed to find frames to work for all these pieces so you may see them all framed up soon enough.

I'll make another post about what I'm currently stitching which I'm LOVING! Even if it does involve blending threads and fractional stitches, so far I don't mind.