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Crochet, Sewing, Cross stitch, and other Handcrafts

Aside from the scarf I'll share below, I have been doing no crafts, no sewing for the last couple of months. Oh, I have lots of plans and even a few false starts, but nothing has come through. And it shows. I've been grumpy, distracted, and (dare I say it) bored. Kenn wants to snuggle and watch tv, which sounds like a nice offer, but truly it drives me crazy to sit and do nothing while watching tv. I'm not a watcher. I'm a doer.




For the past few weeks, I've been kicking around an idea in my mind of a cross stitch sampler to hang just inside our door, welcoming friends into our home. And with that general idea in mind, I ordered a book off paperbackswap and a couple more from the library. I paged through those and set them aside...  until yesterday when it hit me that it was time to create.
  
 

This is my first sketch, pulling together the ideas of what I wanted to create -- a landscape oriented cross stitch sampler and welcoming framed artwork piece, telling a little bit about my family and our home.

This quickly became my working piece and filled up with notes, page numbers, and calculations for spacing as I developed the idea onto graph paper.



And then I selected the colors of floss to make it in and colored it to match. Next up, the cross stitching. Hopefully, I will have it done by the end of March. 

The Scarf

A couple weeks ago, during a cold and windy turn in the weather, I thought how nice it would be to have a scarf to tuck into the neckline of my coat. When I got home, I grabbed a leftover skein of yarn and whipped out (crocheted) a scarf in just a few hours. The finished produce -- 



For those of you wondering, this is simple 12 double crochet stitches back and forth across for the whole length, about 50". I didn't skip 1 stitch after chaining and turning, but went right into the first stitch and so I didn't get the hole at the end of each row. I like it better that way.

What do you think?
What are you crafting this month?

Cheers -- Ann





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