Wishful Stitching

Have you ever heard of Polstiches Designs?  In addition to some wonderful patterns, kits, and other stitchy supplies, they have the most beautiful hand dyed fabrics!  They dye their fabrics into these beautiful, swirly patterns of blues, purples, pinks, yellows, greens.  I have my eye on Icy Waters: blue with just a hint of purple and white.  I love it!

They come in Aida 14 and 16 counts as well as Lugana 28 and Jobelan 26 and 28 counts in a variety of sizes.  The prices are pretty reasonable too, for what you are getting!

I am still looking for just the right design to stitch onto it.  I haven't yet found a US distributor, so when I am ready, I will have to go straight to the source, but I think it will be worth it!

Snow!

It snowed yesterday.  Now in most of the country, that statement is not a reason for pause.  However this is Los Angeles.  Angelenos can usually count on one hand the number of times they have seen snow fall in their yards in their lifetime.  Unfortunately, it did not snow at my house.  We only got a few minutes of hail.  Nothing like at my friend A's house.  I LOVE this photo she took in her front yard.  It just makes me smile!

Current Work

Droids for Sale

pattern by Joy Egan

DMC threads

I am so bad at noting what fabric I am buying so I cannot give any insight into that.  I believe it is 28 count, and I am stitching over 2.  My son is so excited to watch it develop and can't wait until it is done!

Brit-Envy

Now for my daily bit of whine...

I am so envious of the Brits!  Not only do they get the Royals and these fab marriages (complete with the day off work), they have a great cross stitch community.

Have you seen the amazing magazines that they have over there?  I haven't found an American mag that is as good.  To get these awesome magazines, I have to go to my newsstand where I am asked to pay a minimum of $9.99  And I do because they are so great!  (And then I share them with my mom to feel like I am getting more out of it.)  Unfortunately my local newsstand does not regularly carry them.  So I got tired of waiting and decided to suck it up and get a subscription to Cross Stitch Crazy.  But now I am waiting for  for the issue to show up, weeks after Royal Mail delivered it.

They have tons of group and shops.  The Los Angeles area has a handful of shops and no groups that I am aware of.  Everyone around here knits.

And I know no one my age who cross stiches.  I feel like I have a secret.  I am 35, soccer mom, school volunteer, with the hobby of someone who is twice my age.

Now I know from reading blogs that there are many young Yanks who also cross stitch, I just wish that it was a little more common - or that you all lived closer to me!

Thus ends our period of whining for today.  I will now have a sip of wine and contemplate which wedding announcement project I will do for Will and Kate!

I just can't stay away...

My love affair with cross stitching can be broken down in three separate phases of my life: when I as a girl stitching with m granny.  These projects were of the child-friendly variety.  Unfortunately, I do not have any of the projects that I did at that time.  The second phases was after I finished my schooling and I was married.  Projects from this phase were gifts.  Similar to the first phase of my cross stitching development, I do not have any projects from this time.  However I know where to find them.  They are in the homes of my girlfriends who had babies at the time, my mother-in-law, and my mother.

I have recently entered into the most recent phase.  I was visiting my mother last fall and watched her stitching.  I got the itch again.  But I decided to do it differently this time.  This time I am stitching purely for my own enjoyment.

I am not focusing on what I will do with the completed projected.  I am only focusing on stitching whatever catches my fancy.  Even if that means that it then remains in a box.  I am here to enjoy the process: picking out my next pattern; deciding which fabrics to use; which color threads.  Deciding if this pattern will be framed, made into a bag or a pincushion, or if this one will be just for the tactile and visual enjoyment while I am working on it.  This time it is all for me.  And I am loving it!