My parents both cross-stitch(ed). My mom made beautiful stockings for everyone in our family of origin and all her grandchildren (except Dad and Rebekah) and wedding samplers and quilt tops for each of us kids (Caleb has a beautiful quilt, too) and various beautiful pieces for as long as I can remember. Dad did several pieces, too, mostly religious themed, most notably the Last Supper hanging over the fireplace in my living room. He even designed one based on the God's Eye nebula that he stitched and my sister and I had framed and gave to our oldest brother for Christmas one year.
Each of us children knows how to cross-stitch, though I feel like it's fairly safe to say I'm the best at it. I've been doing it since I was 12 and since I'm turning 36 this year, that's nearly 2/3 of my life. That's a long time.
I started with stamped cross-stitch on muslin, a super simple beginner format that I really hated. I can't quite explain why, I just couldn't get the hang of it. So I quit. I think I was younger than 12, but maybe not. Then Mom found a small Christmas ornament of a kitten sleeping on a present and I made that. I'll admit, I attempted to send it to my celebrity crush (JTT for life!) but I'm pretty sure I was unsuccessful.
After that, I moved on to lots of cat type things. And these door ribbon decor things. I have no idea where the majority of my early pieces ended up, but rather quickly, I moved on to larger pieces, mostly still cat themed. I liked cats, so that became what everyone gave me. I was sort of forced into collecting cats. I didn't necessarily WANT to collect them, but so many people gave them to me, I just started saying I did collect them to make it easier for people to buy me gifts (apparently I've always been hard to shop for). And cat cross-stitch projects were part of that period of my life. A few of those are still hanging in the upstairs hallway: one, a cat asleep in a heart that I did when I think I was about 15 or 16, and the other a four seasons of cats in windowsills a couple years later.
I eventually got bored with cats and discovered Teresa Wentzler. Actually, I discovered her through a cat. A GORGEOUS cat. But I loved her designs. They're super intricate and there's a lot of shading using the thread and just tons of back-stitching (outlining) to give detail and they're some of my absolute favorite patterns ever. So I did a couple of her things.
Over late high school/early college, I would ask my parents for something new, something harder, something challenging, and I guess eventually my parents got to a point where they wanted to see what they could do. Most parents want to challenge their kids academically. Mine didn't have that with me. They had to challenge me with cross-stitch...lol So, Mom pulled out a magazine she had and said that every now and then she and Dad would look at the pattern and ooh and ahh and then put it away because it just seemed like too much. I looked at it and thought "Oh, I can do *that.*" And then I did it.
Then Mom told me there was a companion piece. And I did that one, too. The original names were A Young Man's Fancy and Sunday Best, but we thought those names were stupid and we renamed them to Frederick and Rosemary. It was my first time working with metallic threads and something besides DMC cotton thread, working with a fabric besides the standard evenweave AIDA cloth (a very basic, stiff fabric that beginners typically use and I still use on occasion) and instead using linen. I think it took me about 18 months to complete both pieces. Mom and Dad were so proud and impressed with me and how well I did that they paid to have them professionally framed at a time that we were doing all our own framing.
I went back to doing Teresa Wentzler (she's prolific). I also made baby samplers for all my nieces and nephews and as my friends started getting married, I made wedding samplers for them. I started to have pieces pile up so I started giving stuff away to anyone who might appreciate it, not waiting for events like births or marriages. I discovered Mirabilia and Lavender and Lace patterns that are massive and have SO MUCH SHADING but very little back-stitching and are fabulous and starting making those. I abandoned Aida cloth almost exclusively but still occasionally go back to evenweave to give my poor brain a break from linen.
I started designing my own stuff, though it's super basic, just bar samplers (repeated designs going across with text between the lines). I had a photograph turned into a pattern for my best friend for her high school graduation and made it AND IT LOOKED LIKE A DAMN PHOTOGRAPH FROM ACROSS THE ROOM. It's amazing. I'm still impressed with myself for that one.
I occasionally asked my mom for a challenge.
Then....she gave me one.
So now you've got the back story. I'm good. I'm damn good. I've gotten best of show at the Taylor County Fair in the adult division multiple times. I did nearly every year as a youth. I nearly always win either first or second place with whatever I enter. Very rarely do I do easy or simple. So at one point when Mom mentioned this cross-stitch nativity, I kind of filed it away thinking, she can make that herself, that sounds super basic and not worth my time.
But then she did a lot of stuff for us, like let us live with her when we moved to Abilene, and helped us buy a house and all that and I didn't have much money, so for Christmas I told her I'd make her that Nativity. And then she gave me the pattern. I *think* this was about Christmas 2011.
Or should I say patternS. Because this bad boy is 6 patterns for 5 separate pieces. In a five panel frame. That is about 2 feet tall by about 5 feet wide.
Now I know why she never made it.
I took a deep breath and dove in. I bought the recommended material (18 count Aida (count is how many holes are in an inch) in ivory) and made sure I had the threads. Mom bought the metallic threads because there were about 30 different colors. She neglected to notice that she didn't get the special wool thread we needed but I didn't realize it at the time either. Anyway, I got started. Five pieces, six patterns. Go.
These are the worst patterns I've EVER worked with. Some places there's just a void. No symbol for what color goes there, so I had to guess. There's a notation for a color of back stitch that isn't on the pattern, or symbols on the pattern for back stitching and no reference on the key. Sometimes, I had to use the blurry 1989 photo of the finished product on the front to figure it out. NOT MY IDEA OF A GOOD TIME. I got all the cotton DMC thread finished and quit. I didn't like the pattern. I didn't think it was pretty. I had kids. I didn't have the metallic thread because Mom was hanging on to it, afraid I would lose it (which was both fair and unfair of her since as a kid I lost a lot of stuff, but as an adult I'm much more organized).
Then a couple months ago I was hanging out with some friends and we were talking about unfinished projects and I said I might have them beat with how old some of mine are. One is probably 12 or 13 years old because Dad and I talked about finishing it up together. It would literally take an afternoon, just a couple hours, but at this point, finishing without him makes me want to cry, so I'm on the fence about whether or not I even want to. It's beautiful and I'd love to have it in my home, but I feel like it needs that last little bit.
The other was the nativity. I was describing it to my friend, the Empress of Yarn (so called for her phenomenal knitting skills, she's the best knitter I know under 70) and she told me she was going to harass me until I finished it. So I begrudgingly started working on it again. I have worked on very little else the last two months.
I substituted some of the metallic threads for beads and Mom is going to do the french knots because as amazing as I am at cross-stitch for some reason I just can't get those right. Whatever, I'm awesome at everything else. I spent weeks and weeks on metallic threads all over the five panels, going back and forth across them. I found a needle that would break the threads more quickly and so put it away and found a favorite needle. The Empress knitted me a heart shaped pin cushion and it has actually made my life SO much easier (it's amazing how having something so small and simple makes a tedious task less tedious). And every time I look at it I smile and think about her and how much I enjoy her.
She has helped me pick the right color beads to go in the right places, both in the stores and at home with the panels laid out on the table in the sitting room, going so far as to put the beads in the voids on the fabric so we could have a better understanding of how it would look.
This morning, I finished. It's over. After nearly 8 years, this giant labor of love is finalized. I laid it out over the settee in the sitting room to take a picture to send people who've been cheering me on and Eden walked in and said "Oh, is that the pictures for Oma? It's made of love."
And it is. I don't always think loving thoughts while I'm making something for people, especially something this big that took this long, but then, I don't always think loving thoughts about people I love. Because I'm human. But I went through all that stress and distress and discouragement and disbelief and dismay because my mom loved this piece when she saw a blurry photograph. The real thing doesn't photograph well. I see the flaws in it, I see places where I'd fix it if I wanted to lose my mind. However. It is SPECTACULAR in person. It is dirty and stained from my hands and 8 years of handling (and oh my god one time I dripped chocolate milk IN THE MIDDLE OF IT AND I ALMOST CROAKED but I got it off) and it smells a little from being stored in plastic bags but once it is washed and cleaned and framed and displayed, it will gleam and shine and hopefully be something to be treasured. I kinda think she should put it up and keep it up all year round for at LEAST 8 years.
I'm not asking her for any more challenges. I'm afraid of what she'll give me next.
Edited to add:
I forgot to say, and this is all important:
When I got to the part where I needed some special thread made of wool, we discovered that it was discontinued and it was very difficult to find a suitable substitution. I lucked out through google (what would I have done in pre-internet days?) and found a company that actually uses the same dyes as the original company, only now the thread is variegated. I figured, hey, that'll make the sheep look better, so I called my favorite and closest little cross stitch store in Arlington and asked them to order the thread for me. A friend's mom was coming to town and she graciously picked it up and transported it for me so I was able to stitch those little sheep finally after 8 years. And they looked kinda weird. Whatever man.
Then there was the hiccup with the center panel which is made using 2 patterns. Normally, when you have a pattern so big it doesn't fit on one single sheet of paper, even a huge one, there's some instructions about how to match up the separate parts of the pattern, a little bit of overlapping so that you can make sure you're in the right place. I'm pretty sure this didn't have that. I (I'm not kidding here) COUNTED ON THE BLURRY 1989 PHOTO to see how far I had to go from the top of the column to the bottom of the angels to space them apart. It. Was. Bananas. I deserve a prize for that right there. I was trying to figure out how to match the two patterns together the whole way through because there are beams from the Star of Bethlehem coming down from the top pattern into the bottom pattern and it's done in such a way that it's easy to adjust if you're off, but adjustments do have to be made. So I'd start at the top of the top pattern and at the bottom of the bottom pattern and meet in the middle. I thought at one point that I had one line of overlap on the patterns, then at another time I thought, no, I had no overlap, they just meet. I honestly have no clue what it actually is. If they meet, I'm off by 1 stitch. If there's one line of overlap, I'm off by 2. Either way, I DID A SPECTACULAR JOB.
Also, I added some pictures of projects I referenced. I don't have pictures of all of them since I gave them away, but here's what's around my house.
Cat sleeping on a heart. I have no idea when I made this, late 90s?
Four Seasons is a thing I actually really like....lol This was finished in 2000
Teresa Wentzler cat. So pretty. Finished in 2004? Not framed. I'm pretty good at finishing, not so good at framing.
A TW that almost finished ME. Good lord. It's solid. Very little fabric shows, just in the neckline and hem detail of her dress. I finished that last year.
Mom and Dad's first challenge, Rosemary.
Her brother, Frederick
Lavender and Lace pattern, Angel of Winter. Lots of beads around her hem and through her skirt.
My first exposure to TW. Mom made this for our wedding. She started it for Tom and Stephanie and I said I really liked it and she could make it for me. It's not easy, so she stopped and made them another one. When I got engaged, she started working on it again but didn't actually finish it until 2010.
My dad did beautiful work. Yes, I know it's crooked. It always falls crooked. I blame the ghost.
