Old Lady Hobby? Not Any More.
Hi Geekade, I’m Angie. I’ve been cross stitching for 2 and 1/2 years. I started not long after I was adopted by an awesome cat named Bert. (editors note, Bert is an excellent cat, but she’s terrible at cross stitch.) One day, a Facebook friend of mine posted about cross stitch and I thought to myself “that looks like something I can do.” I had learned to crochet from my grandma, but I couldn’t get the hang of the more complicated stitches, as evidenced by these multi-sized fingerless gloves.
Crochet clearly wasn’t for me, but I wanted to do something creative. I tried knitting but it just frustrated the crap out of me. I tried drawing, but I can’t draw. I tried cross stitching, and I was right; this is something I can do. If you don’t already know, cross stitching is basically paint-by-numbers except with thread instead of paint. It involves using different colors of thread to make x’s, which group together to make a larger picture. I started small, with a wee robot cross stitch kit I got on Amazon.
In no time, I was hooked. I started buying more patterns and thread, returned all of my yarn to Walmart, and sold my other knit/crochet stuff on eBay. That money went right into feeding my new addiction. It didn’t take long for me to discover that the variety of cross stitch patterns is nearly endless, covering just about any genre imaginable. I bought a zombie cross stitch kit from Barnes and Noble that had a bunch of different patterns. As soon as I saw the Michael Jackson Thriller zombie, I knew I had found my next project.
Something I learned about cross stitch is that once you’re done, your finished work would typically be framed. As you can see, I didn’t know any better at the time and didn’t leave a whole lot of room for a frame. It wasn’t a huge deal. My husband requested this one next, since we were getting married that year. It was supposed to say ‘Til Death do its’ part’ but I decided to leave it off.
I’ve now been stitching for over 2.35 years, and in that time I’ve completed many projects. Mostly small ones for myself, but I have given a few as gifts and donated 2 to the local Humane Society for their fundraiser. It’s a very relaxing hobby, even when I screw up, which is at least once every project. For example, I recently completed this:
Cuz I frickin love Johnny 5! Well, early on in the project, I dun goofed:
Where the arrow is, that gray part was supposed to be one square to the right. So I had to rip out (common cross stitch term is frogging) and restitch that entire section. I was a little frustrated but it just goes to show you, cross stitching while tired is a bad idea. Fortunately for me, it was a little project so it didn’t take that long to fix. And that’s one of the great things about cross stitch. Even with the mistakes, it still helps me relax, and is my own way of creating some art. And in the end, isn’t that what a hobby is supposed to be?
>^..^<
