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Any cross-stitchers/needlepointers out there...?

ElizabethW

ElizabethW

Pledging to lambda lambda polly
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Dec 12, 2015
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So, after a very long hiatus (because counted cross stitch was not, for me, compatible with having small children), I have returned to my first creative love - cross stitch! My mom used to run a needlework/craft store, and she taught me when I was very small. I had forgotten how much I enjoy it - it's almost like working a crossword puzzle with fabric (if that makes sense). But, looking at some of the Facebook boards, I feel like I may be the only person under the age of 80 who still does it...anybody else out there? Who are your favorite designers?

I'm just rediscovering the industry - so far - I seem to be developing a slight obsession with Bent Creek and Lizzie Kate. And, someone gave me a pile of Prairie Schooler charts - I am going to do a Thanksgiving sampler from one of those.

I also needlepoint - I've done that pretty much constantly since college. My favorite thing to do is ornaments, but the price of finishing them around here is crazy - more than the ornament itself, usually. I need to learn how to finish them myself....

Something about fall approaching makes me want to snuggle up with needlework again!
 
I was a mad cross-sticher and fall under the age of 80! lol When I first got married, my hubby actually got addicted to it too! He loves to do little fun sayings and frame!
I gave all my thread away years ago, when kids came along. I think I loved it before, as you couldn't find fun decorations for your home as readily as you can now. I have two still up on the wall, one my hubs did and one my mom made for our wedding.
I remember doing crewel and needlepoint. Embroidery on the back of shirts, on my pants. lol, so I am a child of the 60s! tee hee
As the weather gets cold, yarn is pulled onto my lap and wooden crochet hooks to begin humming for baby blankets!
 
I don't much anymore. I would love to get back to it, but I'm currently distracted by trying to crochet blankets for my kids.

Here are my favorites though (and I still collect patterns from them even though I haven't stitched in years.... lol!)...

Wee Little Stitches

Frosted Pumpkin I would love to do one of their mystery stitch-alongs one day!
 
@tkradtke, oh-my-gosh those are both adorable! Thank you for sharing - I hadn't seen either of those designers! Lizzie Kate has a mystery Christmas sampler that I would L-O-V-E to do, but it is a bit pricey. I keep putting it in and taking it out of an online shopping cart!
 
I don't have the concentration it takes any more ( and I am waaay under 80 lol ) I use to like doing biggish complicated pieces , but you need to focus , and I have become too much of a double checker too, so I find my self counting and re counting the same piece over and over , just to be sure.. I know this is not what you asked, and I wish you Joy. Thomas Kincaid ( not sure of spelling ) has had many of his paintings turned into X stitch patterns, but if it is fun you are after there is the Aunt Lizzy ( says ) . series
 
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I dit a lot when I was younger but then stopped as it is so time consuming (I am extremely slow). But I occasionally make an iPhone cover. I am using one right now and am in the process of making another (in the set that I got were two covers) but I will probably have switched phones three times before I finish it, :-)

What I like about them is that they are something practical that you carry around and always look at. Plus, the projects are small.
 
I used to do crossstitch. Life got in the way and I haven't done much for years. In fact, I'm still working on my youngest daughter's birth sampler. She turned 30 in June! lol! Now I have trouble seeing the holes.
 
I learned how to cross-stitch when I was about 12, from an aunt, and I've completed several projects since then. Alas, I've let the hobby fall to the wayside quite a bit over the years because though I enjoy it, I frequently find many other things more compelling. My "current" project is a welcome sign -- it says Cead Mile Failte -- which is Celtic for for "a million welcomes" (going by my faulty memory), and it's hanging, maybe half-finished, on the wall in my foyer. I just hung it there last year, thinking I might be more likely to work on it seeing it hung than with it sitting on my desk, but that seems silly now, as I notice it even less frequently now. I started it in 2011 and I think it has been about 2 years since I made a stitch on it.
I found a scrapbook page I made about it a couple years ago! :giggle
 
@michelepixels I know what you mean. I always (full of enthusiasm, you see) make layouts about newly started crafts projects that I remember years later when I look at my albums. Of course they were never finished.
Seems hanging them up on the wall doesn't help either, good to know.
 
I used to do quite a bit of cross stitch before I started scrapbooking. I still have two unfinished projects - a picture of panda bears that I started when my oldest was 10. They were her favorite animal at the time. She is now 32! Then I have a spring sampler to finish, one of a four season set. I did finish the summer one and had it framed. For a while I couldn't see the holes either but my trifocals help now!! :D
Maybe this winter I'll get back to it.
 
I LOVE to cross stitch! I am about 70% done with the Ariel pattern from Donastitch (who makes beautiful fairytale patterns).

I also like Cloudsfactory and have done the Star Wars Alphabet, a Clone Wars piece, and the Disney alphabet... it seems my scrapbooking and cross stitch follow a similar theme!

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I loved it and did it all the time.. I hate using hoops and didn't and made plenty of things including a monopoly board to play Monopoly on! This was an old page I made of my cross stitching when I was on Mo Jackson's CT . I took photos as I cross stitched.. before and after outlining. My Mom wanted it. Now that she and Dad are both gone it now hangs in my family room next to the Monopoly board!
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@cfile Christa, can you take a picture of the Monopoly board? I'd love to see it, I am sure it is fabulous!!! That's a project after my own heart - usability is key.
 
janedee said:
. . . I still have two unfinished projects - a picture of panda bears that I started when my oldest was 10. They were her favorite animal at the time. She is now 32! . . .
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Thank you! Now I don't feel bad at all about not being done with a 6 year old project. :rollin
 
Rikki said:
@cfile Christa, can you take a picture of the Monopoly board? I'd love to see it, I am sure it is fabulous!!! That's a project after my own heart - usability is key.
Click to expand...
Here it is Rikki:
There is a glare here... I have it over the fireplace.. it is double matted and framed with a thick glass so that you can play on it without worrying about breaking :) Weird though I made it in 1995 and still have not played monoploy on it! LOL
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I started back in high school and then really started doing things after college. I put it aside when kids came along except that I did make a Christmas stocking for each family member. I still have all my threads and patterns -- unlike my sewing habit where I gave everything but the machine away (That was a mistake when DD wanted to learn and I no longer a simple elastic waist shorts pattern, but oh well).

I used to watch TV/Movies and cross-stitch. Now I don't watch anything on the TV, so I don't sit still unless I have my laptop.

Friend of mine still cross-stitches and she enters 2 or 3 pieces in the state fair every year. She has won ribbons.
 
BevG said:
I started back in high school and then really started doing things after college. I put it aside when kids came along except that I did make a Christmas stocking for each family member. I still have all my threads and patterns -- unlike my sewing habit where I gave everything but the machine away (That was a mistake when DD wanted to learn and I no longer a simple elastic waist shorts pattern, but oh well).

I used to watch TV/Movies and cross-stitch. Now I don't watch anything on the TV, so I don't sit still unless I have my laptop.

Friend of mine still cross-stitches and she enters 2 or 3 pieces in the state fair every year. She has won ribbons.
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Me too Bev re watch TV and Cross Stitch :)
 
This is awesome! I'd want to play on it. No one else in my family likes Monopoly though. Hmph.

cfile said:
Here it is Rikki:
There is a glare here... I have it over the fireplace.. it is double matted and framed with a thick glass so that you can play on it without worrying about breaking :) Weird though I made it in 1995 and still have not played monoploy on it! LOL
View attachment 232186
Click to expand...
 
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