There’s no escaping it – excluding January, 2-oh-oh-8 has been a pretty lean year for me, crafting- and stitching-wise. I’m a bit bummed about that, but as usual, when I’m feeling a lot of stress about other things, I find the urge to create falls in a heap. Instead, I’ve been doing a lot more reading than usual (the highlight of which has been the very beautiful Girl with a Pearl Earring – how, oh how have I not read this before?) More recently, I’ve developed an unhealthy addiction to Packrat on Facebook (and I’m going to go ahead and blame Annette for that, even though I know she will protest!)
All has not been completely lost though. Way way waaay back in February, I did actually do a wee bit o’ cross-stitchin’ 🙂 Can’t for the life of me remember where this cute heart is from (DMC??), but it was a freebie chart, and I stitched it with a pretty pink hand dyed silk from Jo.
Then, in March, I became a joiner-in-er! I sidled into a Brown Owls meeting one night, had a bit of fun stitching up my name and Tweenie panels, decided that a room full of crafty strangers wasn’t quite as scary as I thought, and became a Seconder that very night. What is Brown Owls? Why it’s ‘Brownies’ for Crafters, of course :giggle: (or ‘my weird cult’, if you believe my sweet husband!) Bunches of crafty chicks sitting around the clubhouse drinking tea, eating bikkies, chatting, and learning and sharing bits of crafty goodness. All thanks to the Good Lady Pip.
I’ve been to another two meetings since – in April we played with hooks and yarn. After the crochet class, inspired by Lara’s collection of flowers, I came home and puzzled my way through a few online tutorials to create this bunch:
At last night’s meet we had a bit of a Mix-up – everyone brought in whatever they liked to work on, plus some Show & Tell. I was so worried I was going to be the daggiest crafter there – because it has always seemed to me that even in this atmosphere of crafty revival, cross-stitch is still stuck firmly in the ‘Nanna crafts’ category. But surprise! and yay! I wasn’t the only one who brought cross-stitch. I know… I worry about the silliest things 😳
Oh yes, and on the weekend, one of my red flowers made its way onto a last-minute handmade gift for my Mum for Mothers’ Day (makes me feel like I’m back in kindergarten… in a good way!)
Pretty!
But the thing that is making me happiest of all today is a small but significant breakthrough in the Finn situation. We’ll get there yet 🙂
