Counted cross stitching has been part of my crafting repertoire since I was a kid. When I was 10 or so, my parents signed me up for a 4-H club, where I learned how to do a bunch of different crafts, including cross stitching.
Like Girl Guides and other after-school groups, 4-H was a place to learn the practical skills they didn't teach you in school. Since we were in a rural area, this meant lots of milking cows, cooking, spinning wool and sewing of all descriptions. All things I kind-of hated as a kid, but would love to do now. The irony, eh?
I didn't do a whole lot of cross stitching in high school, but I did pick it up again in university. And once I was out on my own, my bag full of Aida cloth, embroidery floss and patterns was a constant companion.
In recent years, I've been preoccupied with my new loves: quilting and knitting. I fell in love with bright patterns, delicious textures and 3-D art I could wear. Cross stitching seemed so primitive and easy – and, let's face it, not very useful – that I nearly forgot about it.
Until this week. I was digging around in some storage baskets looking for something when I discovered a long-forgotten cross-stitched picture I was working on. It's a reproduction of a vintage seed packet, and the pattern is incredibly tedious. There are dozens of colours and lots of fiddly switching back and forth between them – the perfect recipe for an after-work headache.
But something about this sad, abandoned pattern sparked my interest. "Give me another try," it whispered. "Please."
I thought of the recent posts I'd seen on the blogs of two of my crafting heroes: Anna Maria Horner and Alicia Paulson. Both have rediscovered a love of hand-stitching (Alicia has even created a handy cross-stitch tutorial if you're new to the art).
They're both working on beautiful patterns to share, and I thought of how precious flashes of creativity like this can be. For New Year's, I promised I'd be more open to inspiration like this, so I grabbed a highlighter, threaded my needle and started cross stitching again.
I'm finding it so relaxing now (especially since I've been highlighting my "done" stitches – they're much easier to keep track of). After a crazy week, it's something measured and calm to come home to. And that's something we could all use, isn't it?
Happy stitching!
