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Re: how did you start?

Re: how did you start?

Re: how did you start?

Re: how did you start?

Re: how did you start?

Re: how did you start?

my year 6 teacher taught us how to cross stitch and we had to take our projects home my mum liked it and decided to join in I carried on for a few years and then gave up as a teenager, my mum went on to complete alot of large projects (which cover all of the families houses) I recently decided to take it up again. In the last few weeks I have completed several cards for family members, I have started a tinkerbell picture for my 6 year old step-daughter (need to get more threads for her wings) and am just about to finish a lovely piece from the jungle book for my 4 year old daughter. My girls have become very interested in stitching and have enjoyed coming down in the morning to see how much I had stitched the night before whilst they were in bed. They want to get stitching too but I am making them wait as I remember that I myself as a child would lose many a needle and then someone would end up sitting or standing on them. My partner has also recently started a small dragon picture which he then turned in a ship a quarter of the way in as it didn't look like a dragon ??? lol.

sorry for rambling on lol.

le

Great question!

My Mom taught me how to cross stitch when I was in grade school. I've been hooked ever since.

I started at school (about 28 years ago) with a rose sampler and continued from there. I had a couple of false starts and in the beginning my work was not very neat but I quickly became hooked. Since I moved into my own house (about 10 years ago) I have really started to stitch seriously as I have somewhere to show off my projects. I must admit I have to discipline myself to finish one project before starting another and I do have a stash of unfinished projects which one of these days I will complet I always make birthday cards and christmas cards although I always start my christmas stitching too late and end up panicking!!!!!

I was 17 and graduated high school,moved in with another girl I went to school with. she was a stitcher. I came home from work one night and she was stitching something...first I saw her do it. I sat down and was in awe. She pulled a bird kit (not interesting to me but all she had) said to give it a go..I stitched a lot of it that night..put it away at bed time and never did get back to it.

Until she skipped out on me, leaving me with no money for internet or cable tv and no money to go out with..so I had to find something to do.
Stitching it was. I mananged to give it to a woman I know who sold it at a craft fair for $20 which then I bought a leaflet,some fabric and some floss.

and that's how it all started lol

My mother was an avid cross stitcher. I have stitched on and off over the past few years. I recently began stitching again and had forgotten how much I had enjoyed it. My daughter is also a stitcher. She loves to do Disney designs and desert scenes. My first project was a series of four exotic birds (a blue and gold macaw, a cockatoo, a scarlet macaw and a toucan).

I started after watching a friend of mine stitch as we drank coffee and gossip the day away. Husbands were in the Navy and gone alot. So I thought this would be a great way to pass the lonely nights away after the kids went to bed. I was hooked immediately and have been doing it since. It was a wonderful way to keep me company and my mind occupied during those nights.

I was taught by my mother as well, probably when I was about 9 or 10. Stopped when I hit my teens through to a combination of desperately wanting to be cool and finding most of the kits available at the time were a bit twee for my liking.

Then a few years ago I discovered quite how many wonderful kits and charts you could actually buy on the internet and I haven't looked back. I am a lot poorer though as I can't resist when they are all so lovely

I vaguely remember doing some VERY basic cross stitch at school, using a thick plastic needle, a length of wool, and what I now know to be binka material. I really didn't see the attraction at the time....

So fast-forward thru high school, college, a few jobs, and the beginnings of a family.... my fiancee is working with someone who's a keen cross stitcher, and when she's shown some of her finished projects, I'm told in no uncertain terms "I really don't have the patience to do something like that, but you're more creative than me... will you try a small project for me pleeeease?"

...resulting in an attempt at some mini projects for Xmas cards, then eventually the DMC Border Collie

The rest, as they say, is history

I'm studying the IB. As part of it, one must undertake 50 hours of creative things.

I chose storywriting, quilting and cross stitching.

I'm learning and by next summer, I want to have lots of framed Disney characters done to donate to St. Michael's Children's Hospital.

What some great stories everyone has. I started after a friend in high school showed me how she cope with a stressful family life and she knew mine was worse. It gave me a calmness to just sit in a corner or off in a field hidden from everyone else. Since then I have gone on to sewing all my daughters clothes in school even some of her formal dresses needed for prom, to doing some machine embroidery and even basic crocheting. But it is the counted cross stitch which I love the most, still even 30 years later, all thanks to my friend named Joy!!!!

I did some cross stitch when I was youger and I think I was just too much in a hurry cause the short cuts I did I would never do today. About 4 months ago I was given everything I would need for cross stitching from I women that I just met through my husband. He had been cleaning her basement and one night when I was over there she give me all this cross stitch stuff. Wow as I thought what am I gonna do with all of this that fits in a large tote. I first made a red and yellow set of roses book mark. Well little did I know the 14ct is a little too thick for a book mark as it with my hubby when he reads. lol He says he doesnt't care about the back either. (Which is horrible)
My beading has not been touched since but I have dug out my reading glasses.
Missy

I do not remember not knowing how to stitch. I was fortunate enough to know my great-grandmother. She was my babysitter until I started to school. She had arthritis and walked with crutches but was never lacking in ideas to keep me busy. Sitting on the "back porch" of her house I learned lots of things that I am so thankful for today. One of those was my love of stitching. She started me out with printed cloth, I guess it was more embroidery than cross stitch, but I loved it. I also began going to the church with her a couple of mornings a week to help with quilts that were being made. The patience those ladies must have had.... I thought I was doing a great job, but later learned that my "Memaw" had been sitting behind me taking out everything I had done. After I was doing pretty good with the embroidery she started giving me stamped cross stitch to do. I quickly learned to love this type of stitching the most. In my teen years after Memaw had passed away I saw a counted cross stitch pattern in the store while shopping with my grandmother. She bought me my first pattern and kit. I was hooked. From there I have had intervals in my life where stitching has been put on hold, but at the same time it's always been there like an old friend. I am now forty and as I look back through the years I find that I have always took solice in my mounds of cross stitch stash. I can being having an awful day and go through all my cross stitch materials and feel better. I assume it's probably a combination of the calming effect cross stitching gives me and the memories it brings back.

I got started when I was 15. My mom taught me and the first thing I did was a picture of Donald Duck. I love cartoons even at the age of 47. I have made so many things over the years, but only have a few of them in my own home.

Kelley

Well when I was really young, no idea how old I was, my mom handed me a small kit of an Angel (cartoon-like) with straw-like hair. She explained what each thing was and left me to it.

Being a kid, I distinctly recall thinking I could get it done faster by making one LONG diagonal stitch going one way and one LONG diagonal stitch going the opposite way to make all the adjacent x-stitches.

Finished Angel, not that pretty. xD

I didn't do any more after that. Couple years ago my mom was cleaning out her office and I saw her "Innocent Guardian" packet she had never opened. I asked if I could have it, she said okay. I got a teeny bit done, then put it down for a long time again. I was in the middle of high school and college, so it wasn't something I really concentrated on.

Last year I got really into my Innocent Guardian and made a huge deal of progress on it. I'm working on another project right now, and I have a bunch more planned!

So I guess more or less self-taught...