X-Stitch: Seaside Lovers

I’ve always enjoyed crafts. I’ve tried my hand at ceramics, knitting, crochet, and cross stitch. Cross stitch was my favorite; specifically, the counted variety where there’s nothing printed on the fabric. I liked seeing my creations come to life on a blank canvas. The smaller the fabric count the better as far as I was concerned.

Alas those days are over. My near-sight isn’t what it used to be, and doing detail work, though not impossible, is more difficult these days. As well, over the years, other hobbies have started to vie for my attention — photography and blogging come to mind. And to top it off, we’re planning to downsize after retirement, living for a while (at least) full-time in our “condo on wheels.” So after much debate (with myself), I’m putting this hobby on the shelf.

For a while now, I’ve been wanting to take images of my “art” and include them in the blog. That way, they’ll be with me no matter where I am. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not giving up what I worked so hard to create. There just won’t be any new projects in my future.

So here it is … Seaside Lovers — my last cross stitch project; first to be featured in the blog.

If you’re wondering how this has anything to do with “travel.” Well, in many instances, a trip we took was the inspiration for a pattern that I later stitched. Take this one for instance … it reminds me of the many beach strolls we’ve taken in years past.

Update – February 4

Mom was working on the same cross stitch pattern. Her project turned out just as beautifully. She stitched the gold thread frame around the scene, whereas I opted to skip it; she added some birds in the sky — the pattern had some birds but they blended into the clouds, so I opted not to stitch them; mom got frustrated with the back-stitch beach grasses and came up with an alternate solution. The framer suggested they not do a mat; since Mom did the stitched frame, I think it works. So here’s another version of Seaside Lovers — this one hangs in my sister’s living room.