At cross-purposes*

April 7, 2011 by nathknits 5 Comments

Before I begin, I give you this:

Just goes to show you that no matter how crappy the weather gets when you’re expecting it to get better, spring eventually comes.  There’s a life lesson in there, I’m sure, but I’m too busy enjoying the sunshine to go looking for it.

Another sure sign of spring – I have inflated my bike tires, and taken it out for a spin.  It was lovely!  I’m too much of a weenie to bike in the winter, though I have many hardy friends who do it.  The fact that I don’t ride in the cold means that I always come to the nice realization in the springtime that all my errand-running and commuting can now happen in 1/4 of the time.  I love my bike!

There’s still not much going on, knitting-wise.  I’m plodding away on the same old stuff, and getting a fair amount of spinning done, so I thought I’d talk a little about a crafty side-road I took last winter.  It all started with this website (warning: if you are offended by rude language, this is not the site for you).  Dr. Thingo found it, and decided he absolutely needed to have one of them for his office at work, and could I please make it for him.  Now, I don’t generally like hand sewing. I don’t do it well and all I want, when I start, is for it to be over.  But, seeing as how all the projects on that were fairly small, I said I would.

Action shot!

 

Turns out, I really liked doing it!  I was shocked!  I wanted to make another one!  So I went to Michaels.  Trouble with cross-stitch is that, generally, the patterns are pretty awful.  Well, I shouldn’t say that.  Just not to my liking – lots of angels and flowers and bible verses.  Not really me (probably why I love subversivecrossstitch.com so much), though I must admit I kind of like the simple, sampler-type ones.  But, I found a book of bookmark patterns, and made one for Zebula.  She loved it!

Then, melted_snowball, having seen Dr. Thingo’s, asked if I’d make him one, so I jumped at the chance!  And may have accidentally bought a pile of patterns from the website.  This one’s modified from the original:

I love the frame he picked!  And THEN, Vorlon wanted a bookmark too, so he picked this one:

the creator of this pattern is clearly not familiar with Roy G. Biv

I like the tiny giraffes.  And it looks like I couldn’t avoid the biblical stuff after all, though Vorlon has no idea what the significance of the picture is.

Here’s the thing I have discovered with cross-stitch:  there are hundreds of available floss colours. Which means that, even if you already have 20 different colours, you won’t have the ones you need for any new project.  So you have to get more, because clearly you can’t use Soft Shell Pink when the pattern calls for Soft Rose, duh.  And then you have to keep track and sort them all.  So I purchased a little organizer box.  So I’m kind of committed.  Just what I need – another hobby.

But then the craze blew over, and I haven’t made any since.  I think I’d like to, though.  I find it very pleasant.  It’s kind of like painting for people who have no artistic talent.  You start with a blank canvas, and as long as you can count, you’re set!  But I find cross-stitch kind of like crocheted lace doilies.  I very much like the process of making the thing, but not really the thing itself  – I can’t really see myself plastering the walls of my house with samplers and landscapes and subversive sayings (though there are a few of the latter I’d like to make!).  So if you want something cross-stitched, let me know!

* That was the best pun on ‘cross’ that I came up with.  I’m open to better suggestions, if you have ’em.