Yes, I’m awake again. Insomnia is not only common at my age but almost routine. I have learned to live with it. So, to fill those hours that I’m awake. I’m trying to break the bad habit of getting on my phone and replacing it with a book or quiet embroidery.
Counted cross stitch embroidery is an art I have done every since the first time I heard of it some forty + years ago. As most of you know, I do more than one craft, so I tend to rotate them. Cross stitching, for the most part, I do primarily at night. It’s not hard, but a project can take a few hours or a year, depending on the size of the piece.
Starting is quite simple. You choose a pattern and fabric, and from the pattern, you purchase your thread from the list.
Working the cross stitch is extremely simple. There is a learning curve on reading most patterns. This particular pattern is one I designed. To start, I find the page that is the center. You can determine that when you find a page that has an arrow that points in between the blocks. The center page has one at the top of the page and one on the left side of the page, as shown here.
You can see if you walk your finger from the left arrow over to where the top arrow lines up that is the center of this project. You select your thread based on the symbol in the block closest to that point and match that symbol to the one on the color table to get your floss number. You can work left or right across making your cross stitches. I typically will do the one color working across and any other stitches of the same color by counting across any block that are not that color to the next block I need to stitch. Hence, the reason it is called counted cross stitch.
Usually, after I have worked about thirty minutes, I start to feel sleepy. It’s not just fun but a healthy, relaxing craft to calm those nighttime jitters.
While this type of embroidery has seen a decline in this country, it is very popular in Europe and other countries.
So the next time you find yourself tossing and turning, try making some of those little x’s.
Have a peaceful night!
Leave a Reply