She was watching me one afternoon, I don't remember all the details, but I do remember watching her work on making some cross-stitched Christmas ornaments. I looked at some doilies she'd made crocheting that were in her project box and asked her if she could teach me to make them. She said it would be too difficult a craft to learn at my age, but honestly, I think she was just in the groove of cross-stitching and would rather teach me that than to pull out a whole different set of tools.
I wish I could remember what my first project was, but I can't. What I do remember was the joy of learning something new from my grandma, whom I loved dearly, and knowing that we now had a new bond.
Over the years I would dally with a project or two when the mood hit, but I never got seriously into it. I'm not sure how many or few projects I did as a child or even what they were until I made a gift for my step-dad in middle school. We've never really gotten along, but I decided to sign the bottom of the project with "To: Dad" instead of "To: Bill" to show that I did like him even if he annoyed the heck out of me.
Photo taken a few months ago. He has it proudly displayed in the living room. |
The next project I really remember working on was a Winnie the Pooh & Eeyore Best Friends Forever design that I gave to my best friend Liz shortly after her daughter S* was born. I worked on it during my second or third year at college. It took me a few months to finish it, but it was also the biggest project I had ever worked on. There were several mistakes made in the design, but I think I managed to mask them pretty well. * name omitted due to her being a minor.
After I was back home that summer I wound up finding this beautiful peacock design in a Dimensions Gold kit. It was 5 x 7" but it was pretty much fully stitched and vastly more difficult than the Winnie the Pooh project. Every time I got frustrated with it, it would go back into a bag and be tucked away for months at a time - sometimes longer. I eventually finished it around Christmas in 2009 (about 6 years after I started it) and gave it to my mom, whom I had been promising it to for years.
Dimensions Gold: Beautiful Bird completed in 2009 |
It wasn't until about a year ago that I got the itch to stitch again. I didn't have a job and thus had a lot of free time on my hands. I went out in search of some patterns that were modern and in colors and styles that suited my taste and wound up with Sandy Orton's "Hold That Thought!", a pattern book filled with bookmark designs. I stitched one pattern with what I had on hand in my stash. And then I wanted to do another. And another. And another. Stopping somewhere in the midst of that to buy the threads and fabric I needed to work on those projects. That book reignited a fiery passion in me and I have been stitching as much as my body and budget will allow ever since.
Last year I managed to complete nearly 50 projects and had 4 in progress by time the new year rolled around on Jan 1, 2013. I'll make a post with all my projects from last year and the handful I've already managed to do this year sometime soon. I think I've done enough blogging for today.
1 comment:
I too have been an on and off cross stitcher, and also this past year have been almost obsessed lol with doing it. I love the peacock ...I have two patterns in my stash waiting for me.
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