Bringin' Cross Stitch Back.

A couple of weeks ago, I was cleaning out my basement studio and decided to go through some old magazines and tear out any ideas or patterns that interested me. In one, I came across a free pattern from the book "Stitch Graffiti" by Heather Holland-Daly. I used to do a ton of cross stitch. In fact, my parent's still do. Yes, BOTH of my parents. My dad loves it too, though he hates back stitching, so my mom does that part on his. Anyway, I immediately knew I had to make it. It was of a compass with a star and moon on lime green linen and it reminded me of sailing. I kept thinking of this pattern over the next few days. I must say that this is a great book! Lots of cool, updated looking cross stitch patterns. So many cool ideas, in fact, that I decided to change the original pattern a bit by adding in one of the "spiral" designs from the book. I also added in a sailboat of my own design and modified the compass arrows and dots a bit. So, what I'm ending up with here is probably 75% the original designer's pattern and 25% mine. As much as I loved the original pattern, I really liked the changes making it my own.

Now, what am I going to do with a piece of cross stitched fabric? I have enough throw pillows and pictures on the wall and the sailboat doesn't need anything more. The pattern mentioned you could also use this for the cover of a journal but I remembered having seen on the website "The Purl Bee" a tutorial for making a (modified) Monk's Bag. I'm thinking this cross stitch piece would make the perfect front panel for the bag. I love tote bags and especially shoulder bags with long straps that make carrying a bag, hands free.

Check back to see the finished design incorporated in the Monk's Bag pattern. I can't wait to go and pick out the fabrics.

Sky Scarf, September, 2012

Here is my progress on the Sky Scarf at the end of September.

It's been nine months and no baby, but I've definitely felt the labor.

Three months to go and it will be done. Looking forward to winding it up and

getting on to something new. I'm hoping to use some grey yarn these last months.

This scarf is pretty blue, not what you'd expect living in West Michigan.  

The Sky at about 2:00 p.m. on September 30. The leaves are just starting to change.

This is along the Kalamazoo River just outside of Saugatuck, Michigan.

My Son's Custom Tae Kwon Do Weapons Bag

My son takes Tae Kwon Do lessons and at 14 years old is a 2nd degree black belt.

He loves majoring in "weapons" and bi-weekly has to bring them all to class.

It's a bit of juggling, so I decided to make him a bag to carry them all.

We looked online at "weapons" bags, but didn't find anything close to what he was looking for.

This bag is just over six feet long, the length of his bo staff and is fifteen inches wide,

there are three pockets the full length that are five inches wide, but vary in width themselves.

The pockets all close with velcro and the material is a heavy weight duck cloth.

The bag has a handle and a shoulder strap made from webbing.

Here are the weapons: bo staff, nunchakus, tonto (wooden knife),

 escrima sticks, and bokken (wooden sword).

Here is the bag with the pockets closed.

Here are all the weapons in their pockets. The bo staff pocket is the length of the bag, is the center pocket and opens from either end. The tanto and escrima stick pockets are at one end and on either side of the bo staff pocket. The bokken and nunchakus pockets are at the other end. The pockets for the other weapons such as the tanto, were shortened since the tanto is only about 12 inches long.

The total cost for the bag was less than $20.