Bookmark

Last year, I had started out on a cross stitch piece. It was pretty huge, and taking up a lot of my time without nearing completion. I thought it would be a nice change to work on a similar, but smaller, design for starters.

I will use this post to track the progress on the smaller cross-stitch piece (and return to the bigger one sometime later this year). I will refrain from providing any details on the kit for now, lest the final design be revealed prematurely. Suffice to say that the kit had a piece of plain white Aida cloth, with laced edges, the size of a bookmark, and the design and colour codes printed on a separate piece of paper. I went to Joann's and purchased the embroidery floss for the various colour codes.

After finishing up a couple of colours, I realised that it would be prudent to avoid the knotting of the embroidery floss, and also linking two different sectors of the same colour with a running thread. I got curious, Googled for further tips, and ended up on this very informative page.

I plan on updating this post with edits as and when I complete each colour.

First off, the blank Aida cloth:


Cross stitches with Colour 1:


Cross stitches with Colour 2:



Back stitches with Colour 2:


Cross stitches with Colour 3:


Back stitches with Colour 3:


Cross stitches with Colour 4:


Cross stitches with Colour 4:


Cross stitches with Colour 5:


Cross stitches with Colour 6:


Cross stitches with Colour 7:


Cross stitches with Colour 8:


Cross stitches with Colour 9 (Completed Bookmark):

You Are Loved

I recently came across a blog post presenting a humourous take on the travails faced by a guy in choosing an appropriate gift for his valentine. The segment relevant to this blog post is reproduced below.

“You are missing the whole point, Ashok. You do not express love by buying stuff. Buying is easy. Essentially, its like saying that you just don’t have the interest and inclination to spend your time doing something special for her, so you just get it done by some one else in exchange for cash”

My take is that the above applies not only to gifts given on Valentines Day, but also farewell gifts and the like.

Now, what has this got to do with a hobby blog?

Right since my undergraduate days, I have felt that a perfect gift is one in which the recipient can appreciate the time and effort put into it, rather than its monetary value. This is where your hobby comes into play. You could create some work of art, such as a painting or a portrait. Basically, anything that you feel you are good at. In fact, some of the best gifts that I have given (as farewell gifts for college friends, or even just a note of thanks for being a person who has influenced my life in a major way) are embroidery kits that I have worked on.

The kit nature makes the start up easier, and you can still put in your time, effort and patience to ensure that the final piece is your own result.

A month or so back, I came across a 'Sew Say It' kit while shopping. The kit included printed fabric, felt backing, buttons, embroidery floss, needle, threader a painted frame and two chipboard cards for framing. It was more of a craft kit rather than an embroidery one. I purchased it, and worked on it for close to 6 hours spread over 2 days. The result is here:


Stitches used: Running, Blanket, Back and Lazy Daisy

Does this make a good gift for Valentines Day? Too late (or too early!) to ask, right?!