One of the hobbies I gave up when I hit the road was cross-stitching (a type of embroidery). I have really missed doing it, but I couldn’t find any reason to continue with it. You only need so much artwork on the walls, or embroidered pillows and hand towels!

Well, I’ve been looking for a piece of artwork to fill up one spot in the kitchen/library; something that would tie in all my colours, including the orange of The Chair I’m Working On, without having too much yellow, and which would clearly reflect me. Tall order! After combing through some antique shops, I had an epiphany and decided to combine this search with my growing desire to get my hands on some Aida cloth: why not embroider the ‘perfect’ artwork?

So, I shifted my search to cross-stitching kits and came across the most perfect thing on eBay. So, this is what I’m working this month while on ‘vacation’, although I expect it’ll take a year or two to complete it:

This is what I’ve done since the kit arrived on Saturday and represents about nine hours worth of stitching, not counting the time spent separating the floss:

Once I get the bulk of the white done, the rest of the stitching will take a lot less time since most of the counting will have already been done. Undoing a large section of cross stitching is very demoralizing, so you definitely want to start slow and get it right the first time!

It’s nice to be able to spend a couple of hours a day on a craft project and not look up periodically to see a bunch of more pressing things to deal with. I’ll say it again, I’m glad the renos are done!