When I was a kid, my mom made several beautiful, complex cross-stitch projects. I saw her working on these, and eventually I wanted to try. I don’t remember what I started with, but I got into making very small projects, like candy cane Christmas ornaments and tiny wall decorations. These were fast to make and fun to give as gifts. It had been years, though, since I did any cross-stitch projects at all.

Then a few years ago (maybe 2016?) I got the cross-stitch bug again. I saw a cute owl cross-stitch kit at a craft store and decided to pick it up. It was during a Christmas vacation when I had plenty of time to work on crafts, so I finished it pretty quickly. It helped that the design was simple, with contiguous blocks of color and no backstitching, and only 4″x6″ overall dimensions.

The owl picture lives in my closet on the dresser, where it brightens my day whenever I see it. I love bright colors, and this has plenty of them. I also like the rustic look of the canvas background. In the past I had typically done projects that used white canvas, so this was a fun change.

Right away, I bought another kit, this time a Halloween design. I worked on it for a week or two, and then just stashed it away for a couple years. I finally picked it back up last fall, determined to have it completed by Halloween. I just barely made it in time! I think I completed it with about a week to spare, so it wasn’t part of my decorations for long. But this year, it has been on display since October 1, so we’ll get to enjoy it all month!

Like the owl, this design has big blocks of color that worked up relatively quickly. However, it took a surprisingly long time to fill in the whole black background. I like the way the backstitch orange stars break up the background with pops of color. The finished dimensions are about 5″x7″.

After completing the Halloween picture, I had good momentum for cross-stitching, so I started working on yet another kit. During the month of November 2019, I made a whole Christmas picture, which was more complex than my other recent projects. Each of the ornaments required several color changes. It may be hard to tell from the picture, but the center of each ornament is in lighter colors, while the edges are darker colors.

This kit is from thestitchery.com, a great resource for cross-stitch and related needle arts. (They have some really lovely kits for table runners that I aspire to make in the future.) The finished dimensions are 12″x5″, which is not a standard frame size. I ended up buying a custom frame and mat from https://www.matboardandmore.com/. They have many colors and options to choose from, and I am really happy with the result.

I have really enjoyed getting back into cross-stitch. It is definitely a tedious hobby, with some bigger projects taking several months to complete even when I’m making daily progress. When they are done, it really boosts my happiness to have cute decorations that I made myself, especially when they are holiday-themed and part of my annual decorating process. I intend to make more for other holidays (Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, etc.) Stay tuned for more completed cross-stitch projects in future posts!