I had a love/hate relationship with counted cross-stitch. As a child, I remember getting so frustrated with a project in my only year of Juniors as a Girl Scout. It was a for a Christmas ornament. I got so fed up with it, I gave up, and therefore not getting a badge. I hardly cared.
A few years ago, I cam across a lovely cross stitch kit in the bookstore: Miss Woolly’s Creepy Cross-Stitch. It was Halloween, I thought, why not give it a go.
I gave it ago. And it sucked as much as it did when I was a Girl Scout.
Fast forward to last Friday. You know what else sucks? Kidney stones. I had one starting the day before on Thursday, and passed it on Monday. Fun times.
Back to Friday. I was laid out with a kidney stone at home bored out of my gourd. I wanted something different to do, and, since it’s close to Halloween again, I decided to give cross-stitch another whack.
Above is the pumpkin I made from the kit! It’s not exactly like the one in the book, as I made a few mistakes and added a few things to the mouth, I’m pretty proud of it. I even started the next project in the book.
This pumpkin represents an accomplishment. After 20-odd years, cross-stitch finally clicked. It’s certainly not going to take the place of my knitting by any means, but it will be something different to do as a change of pace.