The lovely woman who wrangles the writers at Supanova, Ineke, is a crocheter. A few years ago she made some fabulous, whacky Futurama hats for us. I adopted the Zoidberg one. This year she made amigurumi critters. When asked what I’d like, I suggested a sea turtle, since they eat jellyfish (long story there).

I think there was some frantic hooking between the Supanovas. When I arrived in Perth she presented me with this adorable guy:

In the meantime, I’d got to thinking that I ought to make a thank you gift in return. The first Supanova was in Sydney and we stayed a few extra days, and of course found ourselves walking past Tapestry Craft/Morris & Sons. The ground floor level, where all the cross stitch and embroidery products are, was suddenly more interesting than the yarn filled basement. I had an embroidery project in mind for my gift – perhaps a small pendant – then I spotted cross stitch mobile phone case kits.

It’s very likely I did cross stitch as a child, but I can’t remember. Still, it’s all about squares, be they crossed or pixels. So I bought some graph paper, googled for images of Ineke’s favourite Futurama character, and only needed to acquire two more colours than what I had for the projects I’d taken with me.

It was a lot more addictive and a lot slower than I expected, and I had to be very sneaky at snatching stitching time to get it finished by the last day, but I made it:

Of course, it meant I didn’t get much work done on the embroidery projects I took with me, but I was having too much fun to care. However, my eyesight has suddenly deteriorated a little, so I’m worried that all this stitching is the cause. I do most of it of an evening where the lighting isn’t fantastic but, well lit or not, working close is bound to have an effect.

I’m already rationing the time I spend stitching so be nice to my back and hands. Perhaps a good light is all I need. It can’t hurt.