Branching Out

Every year, I plan to learn new crafts. Despite my best intentions, I wind up spending the whole year cross stitching. I just placed an order with Nordic Needle for some Hardanger patterns, and I hope I will complete some projects before the end of the year. Below is an example of a cross stitch project I did a few years ago that incorporates some basic Hardanger. It looks daunting, but once I finished preparing the fabric by carefully counting, basting, and clipping away some of the threads to make a grid, the process of wrapping the bars and forming the dove's eyes to make the pattern went very quickly.




Here is an image of the whole piece.



I have also done a bit of drawn thread work. Here's a nice close-up of a Gail Bussi pattern. You can see pretty clearly where I cut out the horizontal threads, wove the tails back in at the edges to secure them, and then used perle cotton thread to twist the vertical threads around each other. When I have it framed, I will put a dark pink mat board behind it to show it off a little better than my blue blanket does.


Of course, I realize that to most crafters going from cross stitch to Hardanger hardly qualifies as "branching out." I am much more ambitious than that. Here is a partial list of some crafts I would really like to do.

• Learn more about knitting and make an afghan.
  
• Learn to crochet so that I can make lacy things, although I might start with an afghan.
• Make a Hardanger dresser set with doilies.
• Learn silk ribbon embroidery and decorate a sachet.
• Make my own candles.
• Learn origami.
• Learn calligraphy and write out a sentiment to frame and display.
• Hand sew a quilt (very ambitious, I know).
• Learn needlepoint and make a floral pillow.
• Learn crewel and embroider a Jacobean style pastoral scene.
  
• Learn more about soap making and develop a customized recipie.
• Sew curtains, pehaps with lacy crochet edging.
• Decoupage frames and other keepsakes.
• Stitch a set of ornaments for our Christmas tree.
• Complete a Victorian style piece of beaded embroidery.
  
• Cross stitch projects for the major holidays to display.
• Cross stitch on perforated paper in the Victorian style (a traditional sentiment such as "Home Sweet Home").
• Design my own cross stitch patterns.
• Start a scrap book to record my craft projects.

At one point, my best friend Chelsea and I pledged to learn to do one new useful thing a month. We picked up some great new skills, but lost steam rather quickly. It's definitely time to try it again. At this point, I have so many cross stitch pieces and patterns that I am running out of justifications to buy new ones!