The saying, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” popped into my head recently as I found myself devoid of any handiwork projects and realized how much I missed my sewing machine and art supplies this week. Not that my hands are ever idle, mind you, but they were getting a bit itchy for a new project. Well, it just so happens that Philip’s brother and sister-in-law had their first baby (I’ll call her baby Z) last week, so what better time to learn a new skill.
I discovered a wonderful, local Taiwanese brand called Xiu Crafts at the Eslite (誠品) Spectrum bookstore in the Songshan Cultural Creative Park, where a lot of independent Taiwanese designers sell their wares. It is the first cross stitch brand in Taiwan, and it specializes in Oriental Art design. I have never seen anything like it in the States, so I was so excited to find this sweet little company.
Since baby Z was born in the year of the rooster, Chinese zodiac-style, I chose this design and added a little ‘Z’ in the middle. Although not technically difficult, I found this project to be more time-intensive than I had originally thought and more exacting than I normally like in my creative projects. Still, I found cross stitching to be relaxing and very satisfying once the stitches started coming together to form an image.
The next step was finding a framing shop. I settled on a small mom and pop operation in the student art district near National Taiwan Normal University, one of the most prestigious universities in Taiwan. I was quite pleased with the result, and the whole package was mailed off to California for the hefty fee of 203NT ($6.72 USD), arriving in 7-10 days. That’s crazy talk! I can’t even mail something from Brooklyn to Jersey for that price! The postal worker even dug around his supply room for five minutes to find a box, so I wouldn’t have to buy one.
Don’t worry, an entire post will be devoted to the truly unbelievable customer service here in Taiwan.
Happy birthday, baby Z!
