I’m having the most fun over the past two nights (Sunday and Monday evening) stabbing Aida cloth in a manner that allows me to be creative, but also avoids all of the frustrating parts about cross stitch.
As you can see, I am using a bright pink thread whose original use I cannot recall, and I have created a line of X’s. I have an 8×8 frame, and I just started about a 1/2-inch from the edge and started stabbing.
The frustrating part of cross stitch is, for me, trying to follow a pattern. It’s not a hard process. You count the spaces with the color, and then count them again, and then a third time, and maybe a fourth…fifth…and so on. And then you stab and make your X’s. Continue following the pattern, counting, gaining confidence.
And then find out somewhere, seventeen or eighteen hours ago (doesn’t matter if you just started, it’s going to be as far back as humanly possible) you made a mistake that will require you to undo everything you’ve stitched so far and either rage quit the project, or redo everything.
Without a pattern, there’s absolutely no way I can screw things up! Except for when I cut the floss too long and it gets knotted, but I lived through a couple of those episodes already.
Maybe I’m making a giant rectangle of pink. Maybe I’m making a border for some adorable quote that needs to be stitched in six by six pixel letters. Maybe I’m going to create negative space for a picture, or a heart, or a circle, or smaller squares.
I don’t know. But it keeps me off the phone, it keeps my hands busy, and I’m enjoying seeing the progress.
Keep stopping by for progress updates!
Nicki Gets Distracted 