Hobbies, interests, pastimes...

I did some more work on this... it's difficult to say I ever really finish one

More like, I just stop working on them...

Though even older ones I have been going back to make edits

And it doesn't help that everything looks completely different on this new laptop

Rn MSpaint I am hopefully getting a tablet soon and I will probably start using Gimp or something a little less daunting.

Thank you, Pilgrimshope The top one I started today... the other one I started a month ago
tomorrow... I do not like how bright the text looks on it, so I will be making more edits to it...

It is helpful for me to see them out of the design program

And just to reiterate for any who do not know: they are digital collages.

Moved from the other thread to not derail...

Wow... nice.

I've been binging on X-Files reruns recently, LOVE TOS Star Trek (but I enjoy the spin-offs too), The Matrix, Twilight Zone, never mind T2, Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds (1953 and 2006), King Kong (both 1933 and 2005), Star Wars, and of course, Godzilla.

Geez, I'm not sure what to say to all of that ridiculousness within the Church. I've heard of this, I've seen and experienced some of it myself. I guess all I can do is shake my head and just say that Christ will make it all right one day.

To umm... answer your question, I would say "cranky".

2 Corinthians 10:4 plus Matthew 24:6
I should prolly stop now... although the neckerchief looks a bit too bright

Oh, but Seoul, if you're truly a rebel, would not a rebel dive even deeper into the stitching she used to do?

Juss' sayin'

As far as hobbies go...
It's insane.
I am a cobbler of necessity and desire.
A perfect example is my tool bag.
I needed a new one...and knew what I wanted. But what I wanted was horribly expensive and not really what I wanted. So I learned leather craft. And made it myself. My skills and wants and desires to make other products for various people has grown...so I can now do all kinds of things. Purses and bags and clutches and books.

I am also an electrician...I can wire up anything and have been involved in changing the Nashville skyline.

I also am a formally trained chef.
Worked in some of America's finest restaurant and hotels. (Currently I'm partnering with someone to build a bread bakery and coffee shop...it's not easy)

I also enjoy woodworking... looking forward to retirement so I can build a workshop and fill it with tools and wood. I was able to build my dining room table.

Bible study...went way off the deep end with my library. I don't just own the books but I've read my library of resource materials. Then I bought a now non existent software package...very expensive but filled with over 300 volumes of resource materials.
History, anthropology, archeology, vocabulary, terminology, geography, and climatology as they relate to scripture as well as grammar and idioms and literary devices and numerology and dozens of artistic flair in scripture with their writing. (That rabbit hole goes deep)

Model trains? Yep.
My computer programming skills are out of date...
I'm currently working on coffee roasting skills.
I still hold a class B CDL.

I can still sew and use a blind stitch machine.

It's a lot of necessity and desire...lots of things to learn and do....I've enjoyed every minute of all of it.

One day I'd like to build a car

Hi Goji,

I appreciate the encouragement, thank you. 🙂

If I did pick up cross stitch again, I'd want to make those angels and as I said, the supplies alone would cost thousands. Some of the patterns have also become almost impossible to find in readable condition since they've been out of print for years.

I also used to sew, and at one point, I liked sewing for other people.

My favorite projects were a mint satin slip dress for a friend, a pair of maternity khakis for a coworker who didn't have money for new clothes (the pants looked like regular work khakis but had an elastic waist to grow with the baby,) and a series of shorts for my mom, who fits the patterns almost perfectly right out of the envelope (very few of those pesky alterations.)

And I liked doing it on my own time and dime. I couldn't do it as a job or business because the stress and pressure would disintegrate any of the fun.

I consider myself a beginner/amateur and have a friend who is at the self-taught professional level. I sometimes wonder how far I could push myself. But many times I'll try something just to see if I can do it, and once I see how it's done, I get bored and leave it behind. Maybe I'm just into the thrill of the chase. 😁

If I ever pick up a needle again, I hope to make it for some kind of good cause, which I think is the most rebellious thing anyone can do when others try to take something away from them. 💪

If you ever get to a point where you sell/ship your homemade kitchen goods online, please let us know.

I'd be happy to buy an assortment and share them with loved ones.

Actually when the bakery coffee shop gets going it is a definite possibility.

Sometimes hobbies do not have to be lifelong hobbies. During these past couple of years I did jigsaw puzzles in my spare time. I did three 1000 piece and one 750 piece puzzle, and I glued and framed them. My parents' walls were kind of bare as they moved a few years ago and threw away a lot of old items. I can only see of doing one more puzzle for their house. I may do a few more when I move to my own place, maybe upgrade to 2000 piece puzzles, and frame them. But after that I may not any as I don't see the point of doing complex puzzles and crumbling them after, and I wouldn't want to crowd my place with jigzaw art.

Dude... you sound like a US Army commercial... 'We do more by 9am than the rest of America does the entire day...'

Well, it would be good to 'see' you do this again. But, the most rebellious (or perhaps just obnoxious?) thing you could do would be to make one of those elaborate stitches of, I dunno, Michael or Gabriel, and leave it at the doorstep of one of those loons. It might be fun to watch them try to stomp on it or something as if it were a poop fire. (Kind of like moving something out of place in the home of someone with OCD )

Sorry, one more thing.

Could you not find patterns online and print them out? Perhaps use that as a guide?

Well I get bored easily.
I've never shot a par golf game. I can't sing or carry a tune. I suck at pool. I like to fish but never get enough time to go. And I would rather endure bamboo splinter torture than to do paperwork or meetings or sit in front of a computer screen all day.
I have limits... just like everyone else.
Mine are simply not the same as the majority of people...mine are much more severe in areas you likely excel at. It just makes us different. One isn't better than the other... simply different.
I'm positive that you have your talents and skills that you use on a regular basis that makes me drop jawed.

Most of the things I can't do I wish I could. But I can't. So I do what I can with what I got. One day it will all come to an end from arthritis and tendonitis and bad eyesight.
Until then I am just going to keep going.

I like to play around with wood working. I'm already set up for it, my dad was .......oh boy. My dad was a lot of things. A carpenter too, but I was always better than him with that kind of thing. It was only fair, he was better at everything else. I guess what I'm saying is I had a good start.

Anyhow, it's been over a year ago I think, I was watching a youtube woodworker - one of these purist guys that use nothing but hand tools like it was 1800 or whatever, so while he worked he kept his tools in his tool box and I just thought it was cool so I made one and hung all my stuff in it. Didn't look as good as his but it works.



It all comes apart - like the top section comes off, the drawer section too and the bottom is used as a sawbuck.

Oh, I tried the direct route years ago.

I sent the couple an email telling them exactly what effect their actions had on me and that I felt what they did was wrong and not from God.

As with many situations I have tried to stand up to in my life, it was met with the sound of crickets. Not so much as a peep or even an acknowledgement in reply. And I'm pretty sure their email still works, because to this day, even though I'd asked them to take me off their list, I still get their generic mass email testimonies about all their ministry.

Maybe by some chance they never read it, though I don't see how, because when I send an email to someone, I include my name in the subject line so they know it's not just spam. But maybe their email service discarded it into a junk folder and they never even saw the headline, who knows.

I just know that I DID try to confront them, but they either never read it or chose to answer with silence.


The patterns have to be bought as they originally were and are not available in PDF form. They are published, much like books, and have been out of print for a very long time. I just looked at a few major sellers and they only have a handful of the original design. Trying to find them is like trying to find a rare book that no one prints.

The woman who designed them put out a new one about every year for about 20 years, I think around 1980 - 2000, plus the Nativity Scene. I am a bit of a compulsive completionist -- back in the day, I had every design up to the current year and was collecting them as they came out. I'm pretty all or nothing in that way. Even if I never stitched them all, I'd want all the patterns. They are now considered vintage and most are very hard to find.

I'd also ideally want to buy them new, and probably 2 of each. The print was very fragile even back then, and unfortunately, they printed the designs right over the folds of the paper, so by the time I would get done with one, some of the design had literally worn off the paper just from regular use. I would want one copy for use, and another to refer to as a backup, as it took me years to finish even one design.

Maybe I can demonstrate how intricate the patterns are:



This is a cover of the beloved camel I had completed that was one of the unfortunate victims of the "spiritual cleansing" I was given. The designs are so detailed that this leaflet folds out into several pages, with each page covering just a section of the design, something like this: (Unfortunately, I couldn't find any corresponding pictures, so this is a bit of a mish-mash.)



Each color and symbol on the pattern is a different shade of thread, and this isn't even one of her most complex designs. You might see the same symbol or pattern repeated, but they will have different colors, so each one represents a different shade of thread that you have to change to every time. In the above picture, the pattern probably has at least 3 more pages to it, and back then, they all folded out like a puzzle, making it very delicate. I don't really want to buy the patterns used because I don't know what kind of condition they'd be in, and even in the secondhand markets, you can't find all the designs.

This is another example of the complexity of just a small part of one of her patterns:



The other issue is that they call it cross stitch, of course, because all of the basic stitches are an X, as you can see here. They also use half, quarter, and three quarters stitches for more dimension and are much more difficult to do. As you can see, because of the square nature, cross stitch designs have a bit of a boxy-ness to them, much like pixels in a photograph.

The fabric you use has various weaves, such as 18 count (18 stitches per inch) or 24 count (24 stitches per inch.) If you choose a fabric with too large of a count (such as the 18,) the design is going to lean more towards looking like the graphics in an old Atari game, and no one wants to put that amount of time and money into a design that's going to turn out looking like Space Invaders.

So, I would need to choose a fabric with a very small stitch size and my eyes don't have the endurance that they used to, as I had completed these projects in my childhood and teens. One of the most frustrating, or challenging things about cross stitch is that you can work for 2 hours and literally only finish a handful of stitches. I don't think my eyesight has that kind of stamina anymore for such finely detailed work.

The other hindrance is the cost. For projects of this magnitude, you need things like a specialty hoop to work with, and then there is the cost of fabric, all the thousands of colors of embroidery and specialty threads needed, and then having them matted and framed under glass (which is a necessity in order to protect all that work.)

These days, my main interests are writing, travel, and, for the long shot dream, early retirement if possible, so that's what's taking up all of my heart and resources for now.

I really do appreciate your encouragement, Goji!

If I ever do go back to the needle arts, I'll probably pick up sewing again, because it produced more tangible results that could be better used to serve others rather than just hanging on the wall.

That is an awesome tool box.

One question for you.
In times past when trim carpenters were about with tool boxes like these they were used as a demonstration of their various talents usually including inlay work of various designs and patterns.
You have the lid open...so if you did any I can't see it. Did you do any?

Actually...
What you might find you enjoy more is teaching a young lady how to make things like this and help her to enjoy the hobby.

You have a wealth of knowledge and ability that gets lost if not handed down to the next generation.