Singapore Arts, Beauty and Inspirations Male Blogger

Never would I imagine myself holding a needle and cross stitching my first (and also my last) 3 mini cross stitch projects. In fact I have previously planned to give away these 3 cross stitch crafts as Christmas gifts after ironing and sealing them neatly into little frames. 

I had no prior knowledge or experience in cross stitching and I started off splitting the thread and using 2 of 6 strands to cross stitch on the (probably) 18 count aida fabric from the centre. The count meant the number of holes along an inch of the aida which means the larger the count, the more detailed the artwork would be. Just like pixels in graphics. I basically followed the symbols shown on the patterns (graph) sheet provided in each kit, always remembering to secure the thread firmly during its opening and closing.

Each project that was painstakingly cross stitched by me took at least more the 5 hours to complete, with breaks in between of course. My eyes were about to pop out due to the close colour variation, also stitching white threads on white aida fabric could drive me crazy. My neck and shoulders had started to ache as I counted each squares carefully/repeatedly, not wanting to unstitch any mistakes. My thread often tangled up as I stitch and those stupid auto-knots kept disrupting my momentum which causes frustration. The use of a highlighter indeed proved to be important since it acts as a guide for the completed segment. Indeed a test of my patience.

The sense of achievement was definitely satisfying as hardly any guys my age would successfully complete such craft which was in relevance to a granny's hobby. These floral stitch art on aida fabric actually turned out rather vibrant and beautiful especially when they were placed together in a row. I would love to see my friends' mum reaction after they knew the gift was cross stitched by a guy!

I admit that I do buy stuffs on an impulse at times, just like the many T-shirt yarns for finger knitting and 4 thick flat 'Handy' yarns for arm knitting in this post (and still have in the next post). I bought 2 blue, 1 coral and 1 black ones while the brown and white ones in the images below were arm knitted by me at my ex-workplace.

Not an expert in materials but the handy yarn is made up of 20% Laine Wool, 35% Microfibre Polyamide and 45% Microfibre Polyacrylique. Soft to touch, pretty warm and very mild prickly feel against sensitive skin.   

Should I say that I am thankful to have small arms? The smaller your arms, the tighter your stitches would turn out. In addition to that, I also pulled it rather tightly resulting in these beautiful tight looking stitches found from my images. I guess that thick wool or yarns would be more suitable for arm knitting since your arms act as needle this time.

Youtube once again definitely have many tutorials on how to do arm knitting but just lack of options on what products you could craft from this easy to learn technique. Typical products such as blankets which you could bring into the cinema or office, neck scarfs, and bags or clutches which are more tricky to handle. By controlling the number of loops on your arm, you could adjust the specific size based on your preference. I attempted a challenging task to arm knit a dual coloured piece as shown above, alternating between blue and black, connecting them using knots. Main problem would be a bag/clutch lining would be required since the 'handy' yarn stretches easily with pressure.

Anyway, I have left it incomplete for now and hopefully I would transform it into a usable large clutch once the lining part is sorted out.