feeling so stitchy

Yesterday I was at Disneyland with two of my children.  Oh, those charming tea cups!  Oh, those precious small world mannequins!  Being there amongst all that adorableness reminded me of two Gera! patterns which I had at home that featured Disneyesque international children. Project time!
(see previous post opening)

Aren't these little cuties smile inducing?  Really.  How could I say no?
I've decided that I will stitch the first row only, frame it, and hang it in my new sewing room.  That's right.  I said sewing room! OK, true confessions:  I don't have a sewing room quite yet.  But I will have one around the first of the new year. I've already started buying furniture for it and collecting organizational ideas from Pinterest. Let's just say the word "anxious" is an understatement!!

 Thank goodness I just picked up my new eyeglasses because I'm going to need the best near vision possible to stitch on 32-count linen.  I haven't cross stitched in years and suspect it will be a little more challenging now than it was when I stitched with "young eyes" (as my dad called them then). A friend of mine recently told me that she holds her fabric up to the sun to see the holes for stitches. Let's hope I can avoid that terrifying technique!

 Here is my little IKEA sewing box....after I tidied it up for this picture.  If I'd have shown you what it looked like before, I would have put a blight on my family name!  The black handled scissors inside were a gift from my grandmother years ago.  She owned a pair, loved them, and bought a pair for me. I really can't imagine doing needlework without them.  One of the blades is hooked so that it lifts the stitches before you cut them - which is quite smart and reassuring.

 Now these yummy containers of wound thread were a true find and steal.  I bought them at a yard sale too many years ago to remember where or when, but I do remember doing a happy dance when I spied them and saw the price tag.  All these years later, I still love just looking inside at all the inspiring colors!

 The pattern I'm using for this project, is one that I bought from a company out of LA, superbuzzy, which sells imported Japanese fabric/notions. I love to peruse their website and dream of excess time and $$.

Finally, I wanted to show a picture of a treasure - a metal embroidery hoop that belonged to my mother. The fact that she held it in her hands to stitch her own projects warms my heart and makes me happy that I'm living her creative example.

With this extensive blog post, I'm committed to starting and finishing this project. I want to have it completed by January when I get that lovely new room....all to myself.
♥