Crossstitchforum - A FREE forum for Cross Stitchers

Sounds like loads of fun and what a bonus to have fellow stitchers to share with!!!!!!

I started when I ended up working in a stitching shop - I had never done cross stitch before but thought I'd better learn if I was selling it! The rest is history lol.

I started cross stitching back in the late 80's when I was about 17. Some neighbours who I did babysitting for - the lady did cross stitch. One day I commented on some lovely Christmas ornaments she was making. She got everything out and showed me how to cross stitch.

A few weeks later I had to go into hospital to have my tonsils out. Knowing I would be out of action for a couple of weeks, I bought a very small kit to try. After that I was hooked!

I always remember, at the time, cross stitch was very new in the UK and most things came from America. There were no magazines, no internet - the only literature you could get was a few Leisure Arts pattern books from our local small craft shop! Amazing how it's grown in popularity!

I do lots of different crafts - card making, scrapbooking, rubber stamping etc, but I always come back to cross stitch. I find it so relaxing and it will always be my first love!

I'm really new to cross stitching. Last February I was down in Kent visiting a friend who always works on some sort of needlework after the evening meal while watching TV. Be it knitting, sewing, crocheting or cross stitch.

Well she gave me a tiny xmas robin project from Hobby Craft so I too could be productive in the evenings. I worked on that each evening for a week and really enjoyed it. Before I left to go home, she set me up with my first real chart ... A Beatrix Potter birth chart for the birth of a new baby in April. I didn't have it finished in time for the birth but instead worked on it for the Sept.1st Baptism.

I'm just about to start in on my new project which will be a Xmas chart for my neighbour. This will be my first time using a filament, so a wee bit nervous.

I'm so glad I have this relaxing hobby to enjoy in my retirement years.
It's never too late to start.

Tea-lady wrote: I'm so glad I have this relaxing hobby to enjoy in my retirement years.
It's never too late to start.

I have been stitching for a long time, but now that I am retired, I am able to really throw myself into it. My stitchy bug deserted me for awhile, but he came back jut in time. My kids were moving out of state and I knew I would be missing them like crazy, so I picked my cross stitching back up a couple months before they left. They've been gone for two months now and my stitching has kept me busy, relaxed, and sane.

Oh, but I am counting the days 'til I get to go visit them for Thanksgiving.

My grandmother taught me to do simple crocheting when I was around seven or eight. She used variegated thread and I made simple bracelets for myself and tiny purses and things for my bears. My mother did embroidery in that more free-style way that was popular in the 70's but I never knew anyone who cross-stitched.

Around 2001 I discovered cross-stitch online and spent a lot of time looking at different charts. The lady at my LNS (now closed) insisted that I start with a very small kit instead of rushing right into the TW and Mirabilia designs. My next project was a Peter Rabbit alphabet banner spelling out my neice's name. It was really cute! I completed about six projects most of them small. I tried needlepoint but really missed the silky feeling of floss.

I'm not sure exactly why I stopped stitching, just time constraint and getting involved with other interests.

I started in April when I was given a kit by a friend for my birthday because she used to cross stitch a lot and I always loved what she made, but didn't know where to start. Now I couldn't imagine not doing it!

It is hard to imagine not picking up my cross stitch project most evenings!!

I found out about it as my aunt used to stitch 'lowry' designs and it just fascinated me from day one!! That was 10 years ago now!!! How quickly time flies!!!!

I used to scrapbook and ran out of photos. We are not doing much to take photos of anymore. A scrapbook of just random photos was boring. So I am heading to the scrapbooking weekend next week were I get together with my friend and needed a new hobby. I will stitch my first stitch on Friday and am so excited to get started!! I was researching cross stitch and was impressed with the stuff you can cross stitch. My favorite are HAED and Mystic Stitch. I have ordered my first project and am so excited to start it next weekend. I am going to do "Light House of Dreams II" by Mystic Stitch. I have no one to ask questions to and came across this site in my cross stitch research on how to cross stitch. I found this site to be a wealth of knowledge and am excited to have a way to communicate with others who like to cross stitch. I am still trying to figure out how to communicate with others here. I have discovered how to post a question and how to reply in general to a post. I have not figured out how to communicate back and forth with one particular post/person.

Thank you everyone for all the useful information!

1bulletburner, I've sent you a message about how to communicate here in the forum with other members--you should see that you have 1 new message listed just under the forum banner at the top

I was at a summer camp when I was 13/14 and we had to pick an activity one day and I didn't fancy anything else on the list!!

I did a bookmark that day and when I got home the following week I went and got some small kits - can't remember what they were now.

I've always had something on the go ever since

Started at 17 when my best friend asked me to help her make a quilt

I started when I was 11. My mom told me to "just make x's on the blocks" and she just let me teach myself. The more I did it, the more I learned. After my first project I read a tutorial guide in a Just Cross Stitch magazine and found out I was basically doing everything right. The back was neat, I did half stitches first, and all the crosses were the same way. The only thing I learned from the tutorial was about the waste knot. I do waste knot and loop, depends on how I feel. My mom said she was impressed for my first project. My mom said the only "odd" thing I do is I constantly turn my project when I work on it. I turn it in 90 degree angles so the thread tail falls in a direction that doesn't interfere with my stitching. I don't pull all the way through the back, I stab the needle in and then stab it up right away so the only way I pull is up. I just think it's faster, my mom says it's odd though... anyway if the thread piled on top of the stitch area I'm doing, it tangles.... does that make sense?

I used to do little long stitch tapestries when I was about 7 or 8ish. Then one day my mom got excited and got me a "proper grown up tapestry". It was way too hard and I never did it but I kept it shoved in a drawer for about 20 years. Then about 3 years ago I was living back at home for a couple of months, and I decided to have a clear out of my old room- going through old letters and stuff and I found it out. As I had nothing else to do, I thought "I'm just gonna do it!". Now I live in China and here you can only really find cross stitches, so I turned to that and I've never stopped since!

My best friend in high school's mom did all kinds of crafts. My girlfriend one day decided to cross stitch a birth announcement for her sister. I was so intrigued by it, that I asked her mom to teach me. That was over 20 years ago !!!!!! My friend and I still laugh, that I stuck with it and she only did that one project. I did a few different pojects, for my mom, a friend who was having a baby, ect.... But then I finally did the first one that I would keep for myself in 1994 and this is the one that really got me hooked. I finally just had if professionaly framed 2 years ago. It is to date still my favorite one !!!!!!!

That's beautiful!!

I had tackled a few stamped cross stitch stocking patterns for my kids, and then earlier this year my Aunt, who was an amazing sticher, passed away leaving my brothers stocking partly started. I have just finished it and now am hooked!

Just started in October - with a Christmas stocking for my daughter

cdrake wrote:Just started in October - with a Christmas stocking for my daughter

So you've been stitching since October...are you addicted like the rest of us? I find it so relaxing. It also keeps me sane and happy, especially after my son and daughter-in-law moved to a different time zone.

I hope you'll share pictures of the stocking.

I learned to cross stitch when I was 8 or 9. I dabbled in all types of arts & crafts. In my late teens/early 20's a stitched a few hand towels and then nothing until a few weeks ago, I am now 33. I was cleaning out my basement and found a plastic bin filled with books and charts and a few kits, and so I began... again