#24HoursOfCrossStitch

 

This is a Facebook group and is for people that really enjoy cross stitching. I am going to try and explain a bit about the group and some of the fun activities that this group also does. One thing I can say is great about this group is you get to see what other cross-stitchers are working on. It’s a great place to get ideas of new projects that you might want to do.

Monthly events

This group has a monthly acrostic that you can work on. An acrostic is, you take a phrase and then using each letter in the phrase or word, you try and match a project to it and then set a goal for each of the letters. The monthly acrostic is something that you can work on, and you don’t have to share what you are working on with anyone if you don’t want to. You are also the one that determines your goal, and those again don’t need to be shared.

Here is an example of an acrostic “KIT UP YOUR JOY” or “SILK OR COTTON”. You now get to determine how your projects can fit into the acrostic, and you then determine the goal for each of the projects. Here are some ideas of what you can use to determine a project fitting into an acrostic. The ideas could be:

• Name of pattern
• Designer’s name
• A feature in the project

How for your goal here are some of the ideas that I have heard within the group

• Kit up the project
• Stitch “X” number of stitches
• Stitch “X” number of hours
• A page finish
• Finish the project

The purpose of the acrostic is too just to help you move your project or projects forward. You don’t have to show anyone your acrostic or your progress if you don’t want to. This is just a fun way to try and touch a bunch of projects and make some progress on them.

#24HOCS Marathon

Now, this is a quarterly event that happens, and it is a lot of fun. The goal of the weekend is to try and stitch as much as you can within the three days. Yes, the overall goal is to try and stitch for 24 hours, but every bit of time you spend stitching is good, and it moves your stitching forward.

The weekend is all about having fun and setting aside time to work on your stitching. Yes, it says 24 hours of cross stitch, but a lot of people just do as much as they can within the three days. Some people can only do one or two days and there aren’t any rules, so you do what you want to do. There are some people that book a hotel room or a cabin where they can go so that they can focus on stitching and not have to worry about family or other responsibilities. This might sound a bit overboard to some people but when you are a wife, mother, and work full time making that bit of time for yourself can be very important.

I have tried to achieve the 24 hours of stitching over three days, but so far I haven’t achieved it. Each quarter, I will keep trying to see if I can eventually achieve those 24 hours. I do know that there are weekends where I have been to get 15 hours of stitching done over the three days, so that is good.

Overall

This Facebook group is a lot of fun to belong to, as there isn’t any pressure to achieve the 24 hours of stitching each quarter. We do cheer each other on, no matter how many hours of stitching we achieved. It is a lot of fun to sit back and say it’s the 24-hour marathon weekend, and I am going to see what I can get done. I haven’t done any of the acrostics yet, but maybe one month I will look at the acrostic and give it a try.

For me, this is a group that I enjoy belonging to because I get to see the different projects people are working on, and it helps motivate me to stitch.

 

Conferences, how they have changed

 

So, the conference cycle has started again, and it looks so much different than it did prior to the Pandemic. We were recently at an event which before had a lot of vendors as well as a lot of attendees. This time, the number of vendors was way down, which made it a little disappointing to attend. The number of attendees also seemed to be way down, and I think that is because so many people still don’t want to go to events that could be crowded.

The other thing that I noticed at this event that the number of physical things that you could see was way down as well. I understand that it has become more of a virtual world but if you are offering phones or services or other equipment it would be nice if you would have the equipment so that I can see it. Pictures or plastic copies of the items just doesn’t cut it.

Being able to talk to some of the vendors is nice when the show isn’t as busy so that is one of the advantages that I am seeing, but it also means that the vendors aren’t making as many connections so probably not going to be making a lot of money from attending the conference and paying the cost of having a booth.

The other thing that has been happening, and I heard it again at this conference, is there are a bunch of events all on the same day, so people must decide which one they are going to attend. This does make it hard, especially if you are a reseller or provide managed services because it means you could miss the best opportunity because you decided to go to one event over another.

It is going to be interesting to see how conferences are like even in another year because I think more and more of them are going to be going virtual only because then you don’t have the cost of a booth or the cost of staff to man the booth. The staff can remain at their desk (either at home or in the office), so any travel is eliminated. I hope that not all conferences go virtual because what is also important is the networking that happens between attendees.

Yes, conferences have changed, so now to see what they are going to become in the future.

Managing personal care

The idea of taking care of yourself when you are also a caregiver can be rather difficult. In a lot of ways, during this time, you sometimes put yourself lower down on the line and make sure everyone else is happy and safe. I know that for me, making sure that I take time for me hasn’t been something that I’ve been doing very regularly in the past. I have been a caregiver, first for my dad and now my mom. Note, neither of them has lived with me, but I am the one that they have turned to for assistance, and I’m also the one that takes them to all their medical appointments.

Being a caregiver can take so many different roles, it can be the person that lives with the person needing help, or it can be a person that is there whenever the phone rings. I am the person that is there whenever the phone rings and there to make sure that all the appointments have been kept and everything else is maintained at a level needed. I know this time is so different from the other journey we were on, but again, being a caregiver is the same in a lot of ways. The caregiver does give up a lot of their own time and energy to make sure that the other one is safe and taken care of.

During this time, I decided I am going to make sure that I do take some time for myself, even if it just little bits of time each day. Personal care means making sure you take the time to recharge your own batteries, both mentally and physically. Being sure that you take the breaks away and give some of the responsibility to someone else is important. Also, sharing some of the tasks and responsibilities is a good idea so that not everything is on one person.

I have been doing quite a bit of reading about dementia and being a caregiver for someone with dementia and one of the key things that they always say make sure you take time for yourself. Taking time for yourself is something that is very important, otherwise you were going to end up burnt out not being there for that person that really needs your help.