how I spend my evenings
So… in recent posts, I’ve talked about my need to change my evening habits. Less computing, less mindless snacking, and less wine. I enjoy reading, but when there’s always a movie in the background, frequent kid and husband interruptions, etc. getting deep into a book just isn’t going to happen. So I wracked my brain. What did I used to do to while away an evening before I had kids? Back when I was more me and less Mom?
I used to cross stitch. You have NO idea how many hours I spent making painstaking little Xs, creating something beautiful out of nothing but thread and a piece of cloth. In all honesty, I’m not very artistic. I like pretty things, but I’m not good at doing pretty things. Sewing, painting, drawing… they all escape me. But cross stitch? It’s art for the artistically-challenged.
And so I decided to give it a go once more. I have a wonderful chart on the way to me, but I found something to whet my appetite in a magazine. Living in Belgium, you’d think there would be needlecraft shops on every street corner. And there are, IF you want to BUY the finished product. Finding the material and floss is another matter, however. It took a while to track a shop down, but it turns out there’s a wonderful craftstore only about fifteen minutes from me.
This is the pattern I’m currently working on. The actual plans are for a cushion, but I’m stitching it just for a hanging.
This is where I am today. I’ve been working on it for about three days – this is probably about four hours of leisurely work.
I’m not exactly thrilled with the neatness of my stitches, but it’s been at least a decade since I did this. Yet another good reason for a trial project 
I’m taking part in Daffycat’s TUSAL 2013! Once a month, I’ll be posting a picture of my ORT jar. ORT stands for “old ratty threads”. The threads that you collect as you stitch, change colours, repeat. If you collect them in a glass jar they can look sorta beautiful. OR they can look like a mouse nest. I’m hoping mine ends up looking beautiful. Only time will tell. My jar, January 2013:
That’s one empty looking jar. I’m hoping by the end of the year to have it stuffed beyond belief.
I used to cross stitch all the time when I was younger, like elementary school, then I just stopped because there were too many other things going on. That’s very cool thaty ou are getting back to it!
Thanks, Thea! I actually didn’t learn to cross stitch until I was about twenty. I loved it! Then my (already bad) vision went haywire, I started having kids, and I had laser eye surgery. Everything went wonky. I’ve got three big projects I’m hoping to work through this year – we’ll see how that works!