In My Hoop – January – Cross Stitching with Sarah

For Christmas I was really excited I got the Cross Stitch for the Earth book by Emma Congdon. The book is fantastic and has some lovely stitches inside. I want to complete all of them! As soon as I seen the unplug and go outside stitch, I knew it had to be the first. I was quite ambitious as I have never completed a cross stitch like this one. There were so many different threads, and the completed size is 24 x 18cm.

I did not let the fact that I hadn’t done one this big before stop me and I began on 10^th January with my first stitch. You can see my progress below over the coming weeks. I love to take photos after every stitching session to see the progress that I have made. It really helps keep you going on the harder projects where it feels you’re not getting anywhere fast.

When I stitch, I like to follow the pattern by colour. I will stitch as much as I can using the same colour – this means counting squares! It can be quite tedious but for me this is the way I like it. You must be careful as one stitch out and it can all go wrong! Thankfully I only had a couple of occasions where this happened, and it didn’t take much to fix.

Every evening after work and the usual hustle and bustle of making tea and taking the children to their activities I like to settle down and get stitching. After not stitching for almost 20 years until Christmas I am really starting to feel the benefit of having a hobby like this again. Not to mention the sense of achievement when you can see what you have spent your time doing rather than endless scrolling on a phone!

Once the project was finished, I could not wait to frame it and have it on the wall. I’m already looking forward to my next project. I will keep you updated.

I love the books and I am so grateful for the Cross Stitcher magazine for informing me about it. I can’t wait for each new issue to drop on my mat!