To begin at the beginning

Well, here goes! First post. I have been staring at the blank screen for several days now, wondering how to begin, then going off to the trivial things... what color a hyperlink should be, or where italicized print is appropriate... garbage, essentially! Just need to start writing and it will fall into place from there.

To introduce myself, my name is Carolyn and I live in Massachusetts. I grew up here and don't think that I could live anywhere but New England. I absolutely love the fall and Halloween and wish it was lasting a bit longer this year... we have had a great season with beautiful weather and gorgeous foliage but one can definitely feel winter in the air some recent mornings!

My background is in Emergency Medical Service, of all things, but I had to give up working as a paramedic due to some health problems. I am currently working as a cook, which I really enjoy, and I am hoping at some point to attend culinary school and work as a pastry chef. I have always been a creative, visual person, from drawing and painting to theatrical set and costume design, to cross stitching and quilting, and it is surprising how much of that translates into the preparation and presentation of food!

The free time I have is spent reading (anything and everything I can get my hands on) and crafting. My primary interest is in cross stitch. I love to design my own patterns, both by hand and using the PC Stitch software. I have too many projects in progress to count and one of my goals in starting this blog is to get some of them finished! I love to read other people's blogs about stitching and see their projects develop, so I am hoping to likewise motivated myself. I stitch everywhere. Literally. In the car, while watching TV, at parties, in Doctor's waiting rooms, etc.

My focus at the moment is on a planned Christmas gift for one of my aunts. She is something of the family historian and has been delving into every record available to learn our family's past in this country and overseas. It helps that my cousin is attending university in Ireland, which has allowed her some trips there for firsthand exploration! The pattern I am stitching is based on a photo taken (by another aunt) of my great, great grandfather's house in Ireland, which was taken last year but has since been demolished. It is somewhat slow going because I created it in PC Stitch which I love but tends to make lots of tiny sections of color. Here is the photo and a recent shot of the stitchery to compare:

My apologies for the horrid picture quality on the stitching... taken from my camera phone. Boo! Hiss! I will try to borrow my fiance's digital camera for future endeavours.

I recently started quilting which was something I had been interested in for some time. The push I needed to get going was when my dear friend Melissa announced she was expecting! We now know that it is a little girl coming in March, but at the time we didn't know, so I headed off to the fabric store with a general crib quilt pattern idea to dictate yardage. I found a soft flannel print with baby jungle animals on it to use as the backing, which set a nice neutral green and yellow pallette.

I dragged that bolt of fabric around the store with me until I found suitable matches and when I got home, totally changed the layout of blocks! This is what I have finished for the quilt top so far:

And for now I will leave you with that, because this has become a very long post indeed.