There is a time and place for Aida!



I've been a real fabric snob for many years.  I would only stitch on linen or some other lucious evenweave fabric, and totally disdained the "lowly" Aida.  Admittedly, the type of stitching I loved to do (Hardanger, Pulled Thread, specialty stitches) were impossible to do on Aida, and I had an aversion of straight cross stitch...found it boring actually.

 

Until three months ago. 

 

I have been teetering on total burn out, verging on a breakdown, the last few months, due to the demands of taking care of both of my parents who both have advanced dementia, (as in LIVING with them 4 days a week) and caring for and worrying about my daughter who has cancer (who is living in our home full time with her family), as well as holding down a full time job.  To say that my plate is full is an understatement.  That plate is falling to the floor, and about to break.

 

Anyway, I had not done any stitching...AT ALL...for about 9 months.  But the desire to put needle to fabric actually resurfaced, and I started pulling out some old projects that I had kitted up long ago, and started in.  It felt good to get some of these projects done, and actually see that I had accomplished something!  But then, even doing cross stitch on evenweave, where I had to count "up two, over two" for every single stitch got to be too much for my foggy brain to handle.  So I pulled out an old project with Aida in the kit, and low and behold, it was just what I needed.  No counting.  No decisions to make.  Just the rhythmic in and out of my needle.  And so Aida is back in my life!

 

Here are pictures of what I have done since September.  Yet, as I am typing this, I remember that there are TWO more pieces I have tucked away that I forgot to pull out for the pictures!  So that is 11 projects total.  More than I have stitched in a long long time!

 

 

 

All of my old patterns are packed in a box in a storage building, so I have had to look fresh for most of these patterns.  Pinterest has been a great resource for tracking down freebies on the internet, and I have found beautiful designs I had never seen before!  I have many of them bookmarked to purchase later, and it's been fun working up some of these small freebies!  Now I just need the time to get these finished into something!! LOL!