soothing movements

I've been working a lot on my cross stitch lately. This is the second I've done in recent times, one upon the other. I have a third waiting for me to start.

The first was a beautiful picture of a dog sleeping on blankets, on the worst cloth ever. I've finished that, and it is draped over a mirror, waiting for me to turn it into a pillow. I've been meaning to make it a pillow for the dog, actually.

The current one is a beautiful landscape: liles on water, swans and a bridge in the background. Dozens of colours and combinations, different stitches, thread counts. I'm currently about a third of the way done; I started in October or November. Of course, currently I can spend more than a tiny hour here and there working on it, but still. It's amazing seeing the colours blossom out over the page, the picture take shape. To see this beauty come from a series of movements of a needle through cloth. It's incredible.

The lily picture will be turned into either a wall hanging, or perhaps a pillow for Bunny and I. After this, another project I want to begin is making new throw pillows for the living room. Have the shapes, colours, sizes I want (and be able to change the covers as we please). Stop dragging the bedroom pillows downstairs for the evening.


In a lot of ways, needlework can be similar to cooking. The same soothing feeling as moving a needle through the cloth can be replicated in stirring a sauce. Thinking about how a recipe will come together. Watching your creation unfold. Of course, cooking yeilds much more immediate payoff, but it also needs to be repeated more often, and the results are quickly consumed.

The best part is thinking about how it will work: thinking about the fennel in the fridge, wondering if there is any frozen chicken that I can work with upstairs, are the mushrooms still good, and maybe I could use half an onion and lots of garlic. What herbs and spices I want to use.