A New Year and A New Project

Well, it's a new year. 2010 was rather unsettling. I didn't have any major upsets in my life but there were many minor things that made life a challenge. Sherrie is living back at home since graduating and is now searching for employment. I love having her home but it is quite different going from just the two of us to having another person here. But it's all good if just a little disconcerting. I'm looking forward to 2011 and a fresh start.

I have all the UFO's I'm going to work on in a special tote sitting by my chair. It includes the new projects I'm allowing myself to work on as well. This is one of the new ones I decided to add into the mix. It's by a new (to me anyway) designer called Butterflychirp. She has several rather retro designs that I have in my stash but I decided to start this one first. Okay, I admit it. I actually started this early, last week in fact. Yep, I cheated. But it's my hobby, my rules. Anyway although this is a cross stitch pattern, I decided that it would lend itself very nicely to needlepoint. Now I like needlepoint, I just don't do a lot of it. The hand painted canvases are way too expensive for me and by the time you add in the different threads you can use, you can have several hundred dollars in one piece. I do have a few canvases I purchased but want to save them until I get better at needlepoint. That's why I like counted needlepoint so well. I can follow a chart (just like in cross stitching) and chose my own threads. So when I saw this little design, I decided to try it. I converted the threads to Silk & Ivory (a VERY nice silk/wool blend that I won't use very often since it is much more expensive that the perle cottons which I love-good thing I work at a LNS). I figured since there were so few colors in this I could afford the special threads just this once. It's working up rather quickly and I'm very pleased with the way it looks. I am having to be very careful to mark off the chart as I go. Since I'm working on the diagonal, it will be very hard to find my place without marking the chart. So I call this my little hybrid project.