True North

The other day, I made the 22 mile trip to the local, big-box craft store and wandered the aisles trying to remember why I was there.  (Four days later and I still can't remember what it was that I'd wanted to purchase.  Good grief!)  I wandered the aisles and was SO good and kept my promise to myself not to buy any yarn.  If you remember, I was on a yarn diet in December.  And I'm proud to say, I did not buy a single skein, hank or ball of yarn in December!  Not even a cone of yarn was purchased!  I was so successful with the diet, I've decided to carry it over into January and beyond.  I'm now on a no-buying yarn diet until I have emptied at least one drawer. (Most of my yarn is stored in chests of drawers.)  Wish me luck.

But back to the big-box craft store ....  It about killed me not to buy any yarn because they had several very pretty, new colorways of Patons Kroy sock yarn.  I like Patons Kroy.  It pills a bit too much on socks, but it's fantastic for hats, scarves, mittens and gloves.  But even though they had several new, very pretty colorways, I didn't buy any.  To ease my pain of saying no to the yarn, I bought a canvas tote bag with a cross stitch panel on it.

compass rose cross stitch

Not only did I buy the bag, I brought it home and cross stitched on it!

I found a pattern for a simple compass rose in my old cross stitch patterns and since knitting is my 'true north' and I'll probably use the tote bag to store knitting projects, I thought it was a good choice.  It was also a good choice because it was a simple pattern without a lot of detail and with only a few colors.  I hadn't cross stitched in years.  I wanted something easy.  Easy and quick to stitch.

And now, I need to get back to obsessively knitting.  Knitting big projects that use up lots of yarn.  I've got a drawer to empty.  (And just think of all the Patons Kroy I could fit in my newly cross stitched tote bag.

Join me over at Frontier Dreams to see what others are crafting today.