I started cross stitching almost 2 years ago. My mom has cross stitched and done needle point for as long as I can remember. She always seemed to be working on something. As a kid, I didn't pay a lot of attention. I knew what she had made for my brother and I, and other gifts to other people, but that was the limit of my interest. My grandmother had terrible arthritis in her fingers, and to keep her hands loose she did latch hook. My brother and I both got into that for a while. But eventually the novelty of it wore off and I didn't think about it again for a long time.
Fast forward more than 30 years. I grew to be a web developer and, now, an Oracle database administrator. I didn't study those things - I studied writing and have an MA in Medieval history. My hobbies were music (listening, not composing) and video games. I still like video games. I get addicted and quickly figure out how to beat them. However, I don't have anything to physically show for all of those hours. My friends know I can adapt quickly to most games, and they get a kick out of it (I think). But I started thinking it would be nice to have a hobby that I could easily share and wouldn't be limited to gamers.
I mentioned that I would like to try latch hook again. In February of '12 my mom came home from a shopping spree with my ex and my daughter and presented me with a latch hook kit. A dragonfly. I took to it almost at once, and I started buying and hooking a lot of kits. The more I did it, the more I realized that this was just a very low tech form of generating an image for a computer. Each stitch of the latch hook was basically a pixel on an image. As I started to make some patterns of my own, I saw that I would need very large latch hook canvases in order to make what some of the things I wanted to create. Most latch hook canvases are 3.75 stitches to the inch - some are 5 stitches to the inch. That makes for very large canvases in order to get the detail I wanted. So I started thinking about doing cross stitch.
In May of '12, after only 3 months of latch hooking, I got my mom to show me how to cross stitch. Mom has more patterns and kits stored away in her stash than she will be able to finish in her lifetime. She selected a few small, basic kits from those and I got started. I had purchased a dragonfly kit for my daughter, but I did not realize it was needle point. This was not a problem - the fact that the pattern was very flexible for someone used to a nice grid of stitches, and I put it away. I might be able to do it now, after 2 years, but I am color blind and I need the grid of stitches to show me where to put the stitch and the color required. The pattern provided was just an outline like a color by number. I found it difficult to envision.
So mom provided a duck listening to music with headphones. If it sounds silly, it was - but it had about 6 colors and also had its own hoop to center the provided canvas. I did it in an afternoon. Then a Winnie-The-Pooh. Then a printed canvas dinosaur (I am not a fan of printed canvas for the color blind reason above). And then it took off.
Like most crafters (I know that needle workers are not limited in this), I started collecting a stash almost immediately. I don't have more patterns and kits than I can finish in my lifetime - yet - but I am getting there. I love Halloween and Christmas patterns, and anything mystical or new age-ish. I am not a fan of flowery patterns, but I would do one for a gift. I also like making baby announcements. I think I like those because there have an inherent purpose aside from "something pretty."
I prefer to stitch with music playing. Anything I like listening to will do, but I prefer new age or classical. I can also stitch watching most TV shows, and football and baseball both lend themselves to stitching due to the pace of the game. Old movies I know by heart are good to stitch to as well. A good friend of mine, when we get together to stitch, will pop an old comedy into the DVD player that we have both seen hundreds of times and just quote it and laugh without looking up from our patterns much.
Anyway, that's how I got started. My work colleagues are used to seeing me with my crafting bag, so it doesn't draw as many stares as it used to. And they see that it definitely calms me down and provides some stress release. I am still a bit of a novelty, being a man that cross stitches. But that's OK.
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