A Trip to the LNS and FO

See? THE FIRST ROBIN OF SPRING!!!

I can pretend that the weather is nice and wonderful here instead of dark and gray.

I cross stitched this little robin over Christmas. My mom and aunt had a pet robin, Buddy, while they were growing up, so they are both very fond of robin things. I think I’ll end up giving this to my aunt. She has a bathroom dedicated to bird stuff. I really don’t want to spend the money to frame something so little, so I think I will try to do something with it myself, perhaps a little pillow. However, my sewing machine and I aren’t on the greatest of terms right now. Maybe it needs a cleaning? I have no idea.

I’ve been looking for info on ways to finish cross stitch pieces other than framing, but haven’t come up with much. With knitting you can find pretty much any tutorial imaginable on the web, but it’s not so with cross stitch.

I had a bit of Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket and I panicked when I realized that Little Robin was my last cross stitch project in the queue. I had a couple of charts, but no fabric or floss. Off to the LNS I went. I had never been to this particular store before. All of the workers were very nice and offered to help me several times. I wasn’t overly impressed with the layout, however. Most of their charts (more than I have seen in one place before) were in bins, so it wasn’t easy to browse. Luckily I wasn’t really looking for any charts. The floss was all in little drawers. Very organized, but I prefer being able to see at the colors without having to pull out individual drawers.

For the past couple of years I’ve been a Floss Snob. I used to use only the 5 for a dollar (on sale) DMC floss, until I picked up a kit that used overdyed floss. The color variations make stitching much more interesting and give the finished piece much more depth. Plus shopping is more fun when you are looking for “Honeysuckle” rather than “Color 841”. I bought everything to make Little Robin in my pre-Floss Snob days and I was sad to work with boring floss again. HOWEVER, each skein of overdyed floss costs about $2 and I feel really guilty each time I buy it. Most of my previous projects have been done in earth tones, so I blew my $20 in Christmas money in no time by buying every color of floss needed for this springy piece:

I also needed to buy fabric. In the past I have bought precut pieces from the other LNS (I graduated from Aida long ago when I saw how much better linen fabric looks). At the other LNS I inquired about the big pieces of fabric and they said it was $50+ a yard (gasp) and that it was sold by the inch. Whatever that means. Clearly I didn't know what I was doing and they weren't offering to explain, despite the confused look on my face. I couldn't find what I was looking for on my recent trip to the different store, so I asked one of the workers to help. She took the $55 a yard fabric and cut me a $3 piece which will be enough for 2 small projects. I will definitely be going back to this store because their customer service was so much better and I was much more comfortable asking questions.