I have a confession to make: Over the summer, I cheated on crochet, my first craft-love, my one and only.
How did I cheat? It pains me to say this, but I learned . . . embroidery!
Easy access to inexpensive kits and warmer weather coupled with the lack of personal creativity, came together in the perfect storm for this detour. And if you know me, you know I don’t do anything halfway. Apparently that’s the O part of the OCD.
My mother, like her mother before her, taught me to sew at an early age through cross-stitch, quilting, and using the sewing machine. In college I bought a sewing machine and made some party shirts for me and my friends and a pair of bell-bottom jeans. (Did I ever mention I was a wanna-be-hippy in the 90s?)
I knew how to sew, but I had never tried my hand at embroidery (though learning french knots in cross-stitch really came in handy). I got to learn leaf stitch, satin stitch, straight stitch, stem stitch. The amount of stitches are really enless.
Like many fairy princesses before me, my craft did not come without pain. I had a number of significant needle stabs to my fingers, but it only made me stronger.
In the fall, I purchased a pattern on Etsy, fabric, and pattern paper and began the process of making beautiful pieces for the families from my co-op (if you’re from my co-op and never received one…read on.) BUT…
Sometime in October as the leaves were starting to change on the trees and the temperature began to fall, the desire to embroider disappeared as mysteriously as it came. I stashed my needle and turned again to my old friend.
As a rule, I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions, but my promise to you is that I will try to keep you updated on the crochet goings-on here at Chez Hazelnut more often than once every six-months. There are a lot of good things on this blog: many free patterns, paid patterns, stories.
I will also get the creative juices flowing again for some new pattern content. I don’t know what that looks like, but I have plenty of yarn to figure that out.
In the meantime, know that my hands are not idle. The crochet hook is often in hand and a pile of yarn sits on the couch next to me. After all, crochet is my first craft-love and not so easily forgotten.
Peace out! –Heidi