I've never joined a forum like this before, and I rarely even join forums. But I've gotten into cross stitch over the past year and I'm really into it lately. My mom used to stitch some when I was small, and she picked up a kit for me when I was around seven or so from Michael's, but I never got the hang of it and dropped it. I still remember the cute little green frog - actually, they still sell the same kit today!
A year ago in July, I wanted to pick up knitting (my mom also knitted some - but what didn't she do?) and I was browsing a lot of sites on how to self-teach. I was talking to my coworker about it, wishing I knew someone who knitted, and she told me she cross stitched. Cross stitch I said? Isn't that where you make little 'x's with thread? Yes! I suddenly LOVED cross stitching and wanted to try that instead of knitting. I search on tips and techniques for self-teaching. That same night I went to Michael's and bought a kit.
The kit was of two wolves and it took me two months to finish. I loved doing it, and took pictures every time I picked it up. However, I missed a row and didn't find out until I was almost finished. I'm pretty sure only I could tell, but then another problem came up - I ran out of color for one of the wolf's leg. I thought I'd be smart and substitute a spare. Needless to say I didn't like the result. I knew nothing about floss conversion, but as I was lamenting about my cross stitching woes to my fellow cross stitching coworker, she told me I could look online for thread conversions, and not have to order thread through the kit company (there was a note that said if you ran out of thread order from x). Well, all this research lead to more research. . . on different patterns. Thus my insanity began.
I must have bought 20 patterns and various kits within 24 hours. I hadn't even finished my first cross stitch yet! What was I doing?! It was okay though, I reminded myself, because out of all the blogs and youtube videos I browsed through, EVERYONE had a 'stash' and multiple cross stitch projects that they 'rotated'. So I bought MORE. I subscribed to three cross stitch magazines, even one from overseas (The UK has all the good stuff). $80 for 12 issues? Pah. It's cross stitch related - it's worth it! I started scoring Barnes and Noble for the UK cross stitch magazine, as a blogger mentioned they sell them there.
During this buying frenzy, I had finished my wolves! Or so I thought. There was a thing called 'back-stitching' left to do. Doesn't sound too hard, right? Wrong. I tried and failed and got SO frustrated I ripped all the back-stitching I attempted out. I went to the internet again to see if anyone had such troubles and frustration as I did, or if I was just failing horribly and this cross stitch thing wasn't for me. I then learned the term 'frogging'. It means ripping out the threads, which I did. It was called frogging because frogs make the 'rip. rip. rip.' sound. Made perfect sense. I laughed in my head. I loved this newly found community.
I looked at my sad wolves with no back-stitching and frayed edges of fabric and just decided I COULDN'T with it anymore. At least not right now. Why? Because I found an amazing pattern with JUST whole stitches. WHOLE STITCHES! The entire thing. No reason to learn back-stitching now! I already had the pattern, fabric, and thread. I could start immediately! I could think about my wolves another day, as I taught myself more and made my stitches better. I decided I'd try to finish it into a pillow.
That was September 2014. Now, it's July 2015. I picked up a pattern with 25 pages as my very second project. Was I insane? As I approach the year anniversary I started this project and find myself on only page 13, I begin to think so.
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Check out my progress below!
Hello and welcome to the forum from South Carolina! Loved your introduction and admire your moving to a big project early on. My second project included fractionals, back stitching and blended threads, so I do appreciate your taking on a big challenge early in your stitching career. I think it made me love stitching even more. Great progress on your current project. I hope you will give us lots of updates!!
you current WIP and you and you stitching it beautifully. Looking forward to the next update. 
