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.