When You Have to Scratch That Stiching Itch

For a while now, a niggling desire has been bugging me, in the back of my brain. I've had a desire to stitch. Looking at Jody's blog and her beautiful hand work, and other blogs like this one and this one ... well, I was pining for some good white muslin and my embroidery floss. That's all.

I've been collecting pictures of pretty stitching on my Pinterest board, just for stitching stuff. Pretty stuff like this:

From Charlotte Lyons Etsy shop. Click here to see her shop.

Yeah, I won't be doing anything that beautiful anytime soon!
But one must make a start. So start I did.  I picked up some remnant cloth in WalMart. It's a nice sturdy cotton, rather like a table cloth weight. Pleasant to handle.

And not knowing if I could find my hoops wherever they may be hiding in a box, I picked up a little one at the thrift store for 25¢.
The other thing I needed was my red binder containing all my embroidery floss. I hadn't used any of that floss in -- oh, my word, I don't know -- 15 years? I used to do cross stitch. Yep, the last cross stitch I attempted was a "new baby cross stitch" for Julia when I was pregnant with her. So ... over 14 years ago.
But I found it!

This floss is so old. I cut the cloth remnant into four equal rectangles, perfect for large dish cloths in the kitchen. The first one will be an experiment. I find "free-hand" stitching to be relaxing and pleasurable just as I do painting.  I don't want a pattern, or any image on the cloth to follow. I want to create and make it up as I go. Thus, these cloths will probably never make it into anybody else's kitchen -- very amateur.
But my goal is to enjoy myself.

I thought I'd do the edges first. I did some little lines on the top, and then I'll do some starburst flowers below. And I found my thimble! Yay! There's something so simple and satisfying about hand stitching. My heart is drawn strongly to all these domestic creations at this time of life. And now I find joy in the process alone. When I was a young knitter/crocheter/stitcher, I was driven to finish the project. Now I'm meandering along, each stitch a step in a lovely stroll as I create the tiny, private world I'm threading.

 

It's coming along.