x love

Another hobby? Oh, of course. I can hardly find the time for all the others I have, but you can always use just one more. And it involves a needle, so it's more like half of a new hobby.

I had so much fun with my art show samplers that it was simply a matter of time before I imagined other things to do with little xs (x's? exes? x-es?) This bird is my first step beyond text, though I'm still very fond of cross stitched words. Actually, I just finished a sampler for Ragdoll, but I don't think I'll be sharing it here...I'm even more shy about what this one says. Let's just say it follows the same theme I started in the spring. But back to cleaner subjects, like this bird. Instead of using up pages of graph paper I downloaded a demo version of MacStitch and I can see how this might change my world. Sadie loved it too - we drew birds, tigers and some freehand words and you can immediately preview how it will look on fabric. Perhaps it's cheating a bit, but wow, is it fun. And it saves time, so overall it's win-win. The only thing the software can't account for is the wonky weave I use (instead of Aida cloth or even-weave linen, I use raw silk because, well, raw silk is wonderfully soft and beautiful). But I think I'll still buy the software. The text feature is very cool and I'll soon grow tired of drawing out the pattern on graph paper before shutting down the laptop (the "save" and "print" functions are disabled in the demo version).

So cross stitch projects are now officially added to my very long to-do list. Perfect.