Cross-stitch! WTF are you on about woman, I hear you cry. Yep cross-stitch, that thing where you makes crosses on fabric using needle and thread to make patterns, something that is normally associated with little old ladies sat in a club nattering away.
It happened when I stayed round my one of my nans, during a half-term or weekend. Cant remember age, maybe 13? Maybe 14? Or was it 15? (Is that the old lady memory loss kicking in?). I was helping nan as she was having a mini clear-out and we came across an embroidery set complete with threads, those wooden hoops things and fabric. (Her nan’s she said – though suspect it was hers). Sod the clearing-out, this looked far more interesting. The entire afternoon was spent with nan showing me how to do embroidery, and I went home armed with a bag full of threads and those hoop things.
Roll on a few years and I decide to pick it up and move onto cross-stitch as a way of keeping myself entertained. I subscribed to a couple of magazines, brought some cards, fabric and threads off eBay, then self-taught myself the art of cross-stitch. I started off by making birthday, Xmas and thank you cards.
Once I mastered those I thought would try a bit bigger and stitched something for cousins first born, then a hedgehog with sunflowers. I even managed to merge a design and create a little something for the bathroom.
A friend was diagnosed with cancer and I had found a quote for her (oddly enough from Star Trek original series) which was very apt advice, not just for her but it could apply to anyone – those afraid of make a chance or take a risk for something etc. she likes Japanese things and has even done cross-stitch herself, she’s done some lovely Japanese figures and framed them. Hudders asked me to do a design for her with a Japanese theme incorporating the quote, even went out, picked the colours, brought the threads and fabric for me. It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. Trying to find something Japanese to symbolise strength etc so I opted for symbol meanings, created a hand-drawn version then drew onto fabric so it was easier to stitch rather than creating a chart to work from. Hudders couldn’t of picked more difficult threads. Had to keep wetting them to make them workable. A large amount of swearing sessions occurred whilst creating that masterpiece. I had to get a frame especially made for the design because silly me didn’t think to make a design to fit within the bog standard frames. I never do things the easy way (is there one?), the completed piece now hangs on a wall in hudders bedroom as it was designed to fit in with her bedroom colour theme. Sadly Emma passed away on the evening of 13th December 2013.
My latest project was for the kitchen. It fits in well with my ideal colour & retro theme (for my ideal home – provided I ever afford one). I had started it months ago but then put it down for a while, cross-stitch is one of those things you have to be in the right frame of mind to do. The “bug” can hit and leave just as quickly (not much dissimilar to a held in fart allowed to escape. Those come out fast and quickly go). Its now finished after oh must be about three months now i think and hangs proudly underneath my retro style cream clock (why you need to know its a cream retro style clock I don’t know but hey now you do).
And roll forward to 2018, I no longer do cross stitch. Why? Because our rescue dog has decided he is far more worthy of attention than my hobby and every time I tried to sit down and get started, he would run off with the threads.
The Weird World Of Dub Mouse 