iStitch - The Beginning

As you may or may not know, and frankly if you've been reading this blog for any length of time you really should know by now, my favorite hobby is cross stitching. I was introduced to this hobby as a very young child by my mother, who is also a cross stitcher. There are pictures somewhere, inside a dusty picture album, of a young HistoryDiva gleefully guiding a gigantic plastic needle and length of colorful yarn through a hunk of plastic canvas (a.k.a. training tools).

As I got older I was given scraps of Aida cloth and left over skeins of DMC to play with. For quite some time they simply sat in boxes or bags in the corners of my bedroom or closet. But eventually, as I'm sure my mother always knew it would, the bug caught up with me. So now, I stitch. I find peace in my hobby. I find patience and calm and simple joy. And as I grew to love this art I shared it with others (I'm looking at you, H.O.P.S.F. and LibraryDiva), in some small way doing my part to help keep this form of hand crafting from disappearing.

Now, as an adult, I can safely say that I'm quite accomplished as a stitcher. My mother, who taught me this craft, has even been known to say that I'm a far better stitcher than she is...though I tend to humbly disagree.

But everyone has to start somewhere. So...here's where I started.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you The Sad Turtle.

Ah, Sad Turtle. My first 'real' cross stitch project. I was nine years old when I designed and stitched this little guy. He was made out of scraps of thread on a piece of plain white Aida...looks to be 14 count but I'd have to actually get up from my chair and wander over that way to check and honestly...I'm just too lazy for that.

Now, I had forgotten all about this endearing little reptile until I was getting ready to move out of my parent's house. During the packing process he appeared from a shadowy corner of my mother's stitching stash and was presented to me, framed and ready to hang.

So Sad Turtle hangs around in DivaStan these days, gracing my world with his green, block-like presence. He quietly reminds me, as I work on much more ambitious projects, of where I started.