how did you start?

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Genghiscon
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Location: St. Paul, AB, Canada

Re: how did you start?

Post by Genghiscon »

Such great stories! Thank you all for sharing.

I come from a long line of men and women who wouldn't know what to do with a needle and thread if their lives depended upon it. Hems are done up with SpeedSew and lost buttons are solved with safety pins. The idea of my taking up any of the needle arts was not even on the radar.

Eleven years ago, I was sent to the fine city of Chicago, Illinois for some contract work with ComEd (probably the most hated power company on the face of the planet in the year 2000) along with nine other folks. The luck of the draw had me sharing an apartment with a lovely lady by the name of Pat who happened to have brought with her a DMC travel kit and the start of my addiction.

Cross stitching made the borderline OCD part of my brain sit up and take notice. I'd been painting and sketching since I was a kid but this was something new. After pestering Pat with all sorts of questions, I finally wore her down. She took me to a craft store and helped me pick out a good starter project; a bib with a Winnie the Poo image, for my soon to arrive niece. At the end of my three month contract, I was winging my way back to Alberta with the completed bib, towel set (also Disney's Poo), onesie with matching booties (teddy bear design), and a new found past-time.

A location and career change put my favorite hobby on hold in 2006 but I dove back in with gusto last month.
Last edited by Genghiscon on Mon Oct 24, 2011 3:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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kitkat
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Re: how did you start?

Post by kitkat »

I've written about this before.....thot i would just say it again for people who didn't read the other thread :D

I was born legally blind.....I was also born with the expectation that I would never walk, talk or have any kind of productive life. I can see *some*, it's not useful for much that is further than a foot from my face, but up close I have learned to make sense of the world.

I used to sit for hours winding up balls of yarn while my mom knitted crocheted and occasionally I do remember her cross stitching. I was totally in awe of the things she made, but was always told I wouldn't be able to see good enough, that my hands shook, that it would wear out what little sight I had and not be worth the effort.

A few years ago I was with a girl who was into all sorts of crafts, and she was the first person I had ever met who put aside what might seem like obvious limitations and taught me how to knit on a loom. Months after that we tackled making a christmas village out of plastic canvas together. However one day in a store I got totally caught up in staring at the cross stitch kits, I couldn't believe you could really make such life like designs just from little x's of different colors! She told me not to try.....and i cried, she said it would be too small and too hard and that I had already done amazing stuff with the knitting loom and the plastic canvas stuff, she said not to stress myself out......

Years later I'm working on my second project, neither of them were small, I always did like a challenge. Sometimes i have to find different ways to do things, use magnifiers and other tools to get the job done.....but give up? that's one thing I never did know how to do :D

And then being on this forum gets me inspired to try all kinds of things I never imagined I would want to....I blame you all for further enabling my addiction lol
"give me a break" ;)

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Nanna2Five
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Re: how did you start?

Post by Nanna2Five »

I think I was born doing counted cross stitch & crochet LOL. MY Mom was a huge stitcher and I could stitch before I could read! Same for my daughters!
Angel
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Re: how did you start?

Post by Angel »

When I was little my parents both used to work full time, so my sister and I went to my grammas house from about 7am-6/7pm. Needless to say that my gramma and I developed a special bond due to her being a bigger part of my early childhood than my mother was. She had my little sister who needed her attention when we were home, and at my grammas my sister clung to my aunt and grandad, so I clung to my dad and gramma.

Well my gramma was an amazing woman! Not only for her personality, ut for everything she did, she was into art and crafts in a big way. She knit a lot of clothes for us when we were little and was always encouraging me to draw, and write, and craft in any way she could. She'd buy us those wooden model kits to assemble dinoaurs when I was into archeaology, those scratch art things of dolphons and lions when I liked those animals, she bought me pen before my art teacher destroyed my confidence in art, and paint by numbers to try and retore that confidence, and cross stitch kits and jigsaws of all manner of subjects, but I must confess that I was never really into it and by the time I was 14 she stopped buying me cros stitch kit as I STILL had a mess of printed fabric and knotting threads when I left home :P It looked like things would stop there, but my gramma knew all too well that things change.

In college I used to have Wedneday afternoons free, as did everyone in our college, it was for personal development where we were supposed to take one of the fun things like driving lessons and martial arts, dance classes and o on that the college offered, but I choe instead to travel to my grammas every wednesday because I mised her. We stopped going regulary when my sister and I were old enough to be left on our own.

One wednesday I saw her making card and expressed an interest, o she showed me card making, and that ecame a huge hobby for about a year! That restored my confidence in art and I started learning to draw again. Then one day my gramma hands me one of her magazines "Quick and easy", open at the back page on the stitch a Star section. Look what I found, she tells me as I take it and to my surprie see a cros stitch chart for David Boreanez, the major crush of my teenage life! I wanted to stitch him, but had no equipment, she told me to take the chart, gave me some aida and a couple of threads and she'd get the rest to me later. I put it in a drawer and forgot about it. I thought she had too.

Several years later my appartment flooded and I had to go and live with my parents again till it was fixed. They couldn't give me a time estimate, so we planned for a month, I think it wound up being double that. Anyway, I was at a loss, I worked nights at the time, so what could I do on my days off? I wasn't switching to days and then working nights again, so what to do? my current hobbies took up too much room and I couldn't do anything noisey a everyone would be in bed...I found the magazine my gramma had given me, and decided to learn to cross stitch, not for Boreanez, but for the cute bunnies I saw in the issue as well. So I went out and bought cross stitch card hop as it had a free kit with it and learned to stitch from there.
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Cleejoow
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Re: how did you start?

Post by Cleejoow »

I started stitching when i was 9yo. My parents just got divorced, it was during the summer and I was home from school. I was staying at my grandparents with my mother and my brother. My first project was the letter "B". It took me about a year to finish. I still have it somewhere in my stitching room.
I guess it was good for me, I was so busy stitching I didn't really have the time to think about my parents too much.

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fiddler
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Re: how did you start?

Post by fiddler »

I started a few years ago when the first cross stitch magazine came out. When I was younger I was not encouraged to sew as I am Left handed.When I saw the mag I decided to have a go and have never looked back. :mexicanwave:
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Zeb
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Re: how did you start?

Post by Zeb »

I loved reading this thread. We've all discovered stitching in such vastly different ways :)

I was chilling out at a friend's place for a couple of weeks a number of years ago, and was bored to tears while the friend was out working. I noticed some of the cross stitch stuff she had on display and was in awe of how intricate they were.

When she got home I asked her about them, and she offered to teach me. So the next day I went out, bought a whole bunch of cross stitch charts, books and materials.

She patiently taught me, and voila...

This was my first ever cross stitch. It features Kowhai, a yellow flowering tree native to New Zealand.

Image

Got so excited I immediately did these two:

Image

Image

I did the bookmark for her, my first finished item btw, as a gift to say thankyou :)

Been hooked since.
Zeb A.
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Mabel Figworthy
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Re: how did you start?

Post by Mabel Figworthy »

How wonderful to have your first ever pieces, and the finish on the bookmark is great!
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Darenda
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Re: how did you start?

Post by Darenda »

My grandmother used to do embroidery and felt applique. I don;t remember her doing any cross stitch. My mom used to do crewel, embroidery and felt applique. When I was young, we went through stages of various crafts - macrame, felt applique, needlepoint on plastic canvas (I made LOTS of tissue box covers and coasters).

I can't remember exactly how I started on cross stitch. I think it was an ornament or other small projects. Then I started with larger oictures. My mom was into the whole Victorian-style thing so I did quite a few of Paula Vaughn's charts. This was the first one http://www.ioffer.com/i/Cameo-of-the-Pa ... n-43834096" target="_blank. I was in my junior year of high school and taking a home economics course. The teacher had everyone making small Christmas ornaments. She allowed a week or something for the project. I finished mine in one class period. After that I brought in my Paula Vaughn project.

I've been stitching ever since. I do go through spells where I don't stitch at all. Sometimes life just gets in the way. I still buy charts and kits and fabric if I find something I like, but sometimes I just can't seem to get the energy to start a project. Then I'll go through periods where I work one project after another.

I love to make projects as gifts. It just feels so great to give someone somehting you have put your heart into making. I always try to make a wedding sampler when a good friend or family member gets married or a birth sampler when someone has a baby.
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Zeb
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Re: how did you start?

Post by Zeb »

*blushes* Mabel from you that is a huge compliment, thankyou! :)
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Mrs Rooster
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Re: how did you start?

Post by Mrs Rooster »

I was in 6th grade and my teacher's wife was expecting a baby. I did something, but I don't remember what it was. I have been doing cross stitch on and off since. I turned 41 in August.
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Ryukai
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Re: how did you start?

Post by Ryukai »

I started cross stitching about 10 years ago. I was 12ish and was at a day camp during the summer, and I was shy. One of the teachers was teaching the kids to cross stitch and gave me a half done sampler to finish, and the rest was history.
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sweet_stitcher2011
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Re: how did you start?

Post by sweet_stitcher2011 »

i started when i was 10 yrs old by buying one of those very small kits that you could do in like an hour with my allowance,when i got one back then..lol
and have loved it ever since..my mom doesn't do it,like most of you have stated.im alone in this hobby.
slinky_malinki
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Re: how did you start?

Post by slinky_malinki »

Hi everyone :wave:

I can't remember how many years ago I started to stitch, probably about 15 or so. I was visiting a friend in London and she was sat on her sofa stitching Eeyore. I was enthralled watching her but thought "that doesn't look hard, I can do that" :roll: .

When I got back to Wales I bought a kit that was a picture of a magician holding (I think) some kind of crystal ball. I merrily started on my way and the stitching got harder and harder, getting the needle through the holes was practically impossible and I started to wonder if it was for me. When I showed my mum on a visit, she told me that I needed to separate the threads and use 2 strands instead of the whole 6 (thanks mum). So, I guess I had a lot to learn about a craft that looked so simple when someone else was doing it!!!

Anyway, that kit went in the bin and I picked up some of the free ones that you get on the front of magazines and went from there. I've even been asked to stitch for other people, birth samplers etc. However, mean as it may seem, I much prefer doing my own - it's a lot of work to 'give away'.

Cross-stitching kept me sane through my years as a single parent, on long nights and when the weather was too rubbish to go outside and I LOVE it!!!

I've just started my first HAED last night and have 2 projects that I've just finished and am ready to take for framing. For me, that's the best bit. Getting it back from the framers, putting it on the wall and feeling a sense of pride :D

Happy stitching everyone x
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seedreemer
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Re: how did you start?

Post by seedreemer »

My family has always been craft lovers but nobody stitched. I don't remember the motivation, but I picked up a pattern called "Girl on Swing" when I was 13 and stitched it on white 14 ct Aida. I wish I still had it for sentimental reasons.

I've fiddled in a lot of different hobbies over the ensuing decades but always come back to cross stitching. It's my true love.
Athalie
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