Cross Stitch

In 2009 I tagged along with a crafty friend to the stitches and craft show. At the time she was interested in learning crochet, and had been cross stitching for over a decade. I, on the other hand was crafting cards, but nothing else. She decided I should learn cross stitch and promised me it was the easiest craft and any one could do it. She was so right! All you do is create crosses out of embroidery floss, where the pattern suggests you should, on your aida cloth and leave the rest blank ;) The only catch is that it can be very slow going, with large patterns made from hundreds of tiny squares that require two stitches each to make the cross.

At first I was turned off by thinking cross stitch was old fashioned and I would only be able to find naffy patterns. Then I discovered radical cross stitch and subversive cross stitch! I got a few cross stitch books and sourced patterns from online and very quickly learned how to create my own patterns using a grid and using a variety of images and alphabets from all over the place to make unique designs for friends and family.