Things I’ve learned about cross-stitch:
- You don’t use the whole string of embroidery floss most of the time
- All the crosses should go in the same direction or order.
- It helps to block out your project in advance, and perhaps make lines in soluble ink.
- It requires sharp eyes.
- You need to pay attention.
- Your needle needs to be big enough to thread but small enough to not stretch out the fabric.
I don’t think I like this hobby. It is persnickety, even when accounting for my beginner’s mistakes. I like hobbies where I can watch tv while doing them, which I can do with knitting and sewing felt.
For my first project, I chose a simple bookmark pattern out of the Lit Stitch book (please excuse the profanity, Mum). I had a pre-edged bookmark that I thought would be great for this.
In the book it said I should use two strands of the embroidery floss. I looked at my floss in dismay. It didn’t look like it would go into strands. I tried, and it shredded into a tangled mess and fell apart. Hmm. Well maybe it was just bad, cheap floss. I pulled out some floss from a kit. It seemed better, but snarled and tangled, bunched up on the needle, wouldn’t feed through the eye of the needle and was generally a giant disaster. After trying half a row with two strands, I gave up and just used the whole floss.
My first part was a straight line. It was hard to mess up, but sometimes I couldn’t tell where the line was, or where to go next. Then I went on to the text, without counting all the blocks to see if the design would fit. (Spoiler alert: it didn’t). I started out with one size, changed sizes without realizing, adjusted back, then (finally!) figured out that it wouldn’t fit. Ok, I’ll abbreviate to f’ng, it’s more polite anyway. That “g” was huge. Ok, I’ll make “book” on the diagonal. Wow.
Good thing it’s supposed to be a funny bookmark! I think I’m going to laugh every time I see it.
The thing about craft-dabbling is accepting that you are a beginner. It’s all about discovery and hands-on experience. To learn, you need to make mistakes, even easily avoided ones, even embarrassing ones, in order to understand the mechanics. Sometimes, watching experts (or those doctored videos on Pinterest) it looks so easy, like anyone could do it perfectly the first time. For myself, I need to slow down, accept goof-ups with humor and forgiveness, and give what I’m trying a real chance. I ask myself how I’d make it easier the next time I do it. I go back and read the cautions I skipped over.
I’m going to try an embroidery project next, wish me luck!
