My first

As I stitched today on my Autumn piece, I was thinking of all the cross stitches I have done (more than a few started and never finished... yes I have my very own box of shame), and how I got started and I wanted to write a thank you. The one above is my very first cross stitch and it is almost twenty years old. It is a journal cover made with red corduroy, lace and of course my cross stitch. When I was eleven we had a Mormon family move in next door to us. My extremely old school Catholic mother referred to them as if they had come down with something possibly contagious. But I loved them, they had three kids and the mom was oh so crafty. She had a vegetable garden (I remember one summer helping her make pickles), and quilted and stitched. My mother knew how to stitch, her own mother did beautiful embroidery and my other grandmother made quilts, but she never enjoyed making things. She also never taught me or my sister how to stitch, it just wasn't something she found fun. But the next door neighbors mom did find it fun, and passed that love of craft on to me. So even though I don't know where she is now, thank you Rose McKuen. It is amazing to me she had the patience to teach a fidgety eleven year old how to make something so pretty and that I still treasure today almost two decades later. My oldest daughter, who is six, has been asking me to show her how to x-stitch, and I am not sure I am ready yet (I already paint with her and that takes up most of my mess tolerance). But I hope one day both of my daughters will enjoy making stuff as much as I do.


This is more of the Autumn piece, I have started the witch in the lower corner (the red will be part of her dress). I think she is my favorite part of the piece so I can't wait for her to be done, she has the cutest black cat sitting on her broomstick with her.