My Spark for writing came back after a season of necessity. Five long months of healing and distraction have given me words again that I need to share and stories to bring smiles to faces even through the tears I had coming down my face first. Life keeps moving
though and I saw God working through my trials of healing everyday.
When I look at a new piece of Aida Cloth straight from the store it’s a blank canvas. I can make whatever I put in my head to make on that piece of cloth; providing I know what I am doing. Sometimes picking only one design is the hardest part for me.
Fortunately for me I already had a special idea for my cloth in mind. Writing about allowing Autumn to work on the gift for her brother, which was the Spitfire I had about a quarter to halfway done, made me want to do another airplane. Especially when all of the ones I have made were given away.
In these first photos I am looking at the cloth and finding my true middle. So I am folding the top down in the first one. Secondly I take the side to side and also find that middle. Then in this right photo I have found where they intersect my true middle of the Aida cloth and the middle of where my key will be centered due to my design from the book.
The first time I made this plane I used the white cloth, but this time I want to have some fun and make it interesting. I am using the color Oatmeal and my size cloth is 14. The specific guidelines are based on your preferred details. The size 11 means the holes are bigger 14 is the next biggest and probably what I use the most. When I don’t use prepared kits. I have used size 28 it is the tiniest holes and hardest to deal with so I usually steer away from using them.
Since I first started cross-stitching as a very young girl one of the comments I have heard and only gets worse goes like I can’t believe you can see to do that. Or how do you get the needles in them holes? Sometimes it’s funny to listen to the comments.
There’s something exciting and fun about starting a new project. To watch how one stitch multiplies into a whole row and then a piece of monotonous color then turns into a chunk of an airplane. It’s fun to observe. It also reminds me of how we are all God’s projects and He is always working behind the cloth as well as in the scene you see.
As we begin this New Year of 2024 take time in the details of your life. Just as I need the cloth, a design, needles and thread, we need God and to pray, to be present in the moment with our loved ones and to be the Jesus that others might not get to see in other ways. This is the time to refocus on God and what He would have us do.
Jewells of Thought 
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