Quarantine Creativity

During this crazy time with COVID-19 and not leaving my house since 5pm on 1st March I am challenging myself to do a few things.

I’m challenging myself to:

• Read more with the help of Audible
• Write more blog posts
• Get my finances in order
• Get lots of Cross Stitching done

While I have had mixed results so far, I am making progress. I am just starting the next book in the Lincoln Rhyme series by Jeffery Deaver. I have written 3 blog posts and I have completed hours and hours of research for other articles that I need to write. I have paid off one credit card, and decided where my stimulus check will go. When it comes to that stimulus check, there is debate as to if or when I actually get one (people like me with SSI have been told we won’t need to do anything and we have also been told that we might need to input our info on the IRS website)…family is telling me to sit tight and not enter information anywhere. I don’t think mom knows just how much financial cleaning is going on over here and I can promise you she won’t like my next three big moves after this.

That leaves the cross stitching. For a while I had been cross stitching every day but over the last few months I have not gotten any stitching done as I have had other things keeping me busy/distracted/otherwise engaged all day. Well, now I am getting back to my needle and threads. I found a local cross stitch supply store that is doing over-the-phone ordering and curbside pickup on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays and so on Easter Sunday I began taking an inventory of my patterns and the supplies that are stored with each pattern to make sure that I have enough thread and the desired size and color of fabric. I even found two needles that had gone missing and which were the source of two massive arguments at the times of their disappearances. One of the things that I do with my patterns is digitize them, by transferring the pattern to either StitchSketch or to Microsoft Excel. This keeps the pattern from becoming irreparably damaged as well as gives me time to think out my stitching strategy before i actually get started.  I can also mark my place on the digital copy without permanently obscuring the pattern so it can easily be reused time after time.

One of the patterns that have had and have bee working on since 2018 is a map of the London Underground System.  I don’t just have one pattern for this, I admit I have 3 or 5. My plan was and is to digitize the pattern and at the same time personalize it just a little by marking the location of the hotel where I stayed. If I could figure out where to mark the place that I tried on tiaras and came up with the with the idea for a bespoke piece of jewelry those would be on the pattern as well, but so far I can only place the hotel.

As of tonight, after 3 days of work and a lot of trial and error…SO MANY ERRORS, I have correctly placed 3 full lines that have been digitized from the original pattern.

As you can see, currently completed are the Metropolitan Line, the Circle Line, and the Waterloo and City Line.

I figured that some of my readers who I also know are fellow cross stitchers might like to keep an eye on my progress here and, let’s be honest here…if I am posting this from the point of digitizing the pattern through to framing then that means I have an extra reason to make sure that it actually gets finished.

Tomorrow, I’ll place the Central Line.  I might even get the Piccadilly Line placed.  We’ll see how the transfer process treats me.