The 'bent Needle

Per a comment in my response to lilli, I thought I would make a post in regards to what it is like to be a guy who cross stitches.

Well, what can I say? After the initial worry that I would be kicked out of The Guy's Club (not that I was much of a member to begin with), it wasn't all that bad. ;-) But seriously, it wasn't really that much of a stretch for me; once I decided to give it a try.

I have always been what some might call an 'artsy type' of person, although I will be the first to admit that I am not a practicing artsy. Umm... yeah... somethinglikethat... Anyway, I was one of those folks who did fairly well in art class while in school. I have a fairly active imagination that has been relatively inactive of late.

Enter my darling wife Kim. (Take a bow, sweetie...) About 2 years ago, she got back into cross stitching after a long hiatus. As I watched her stitch her projects, I became increasingly curious about this cross stitching thing. Needles to say, my curiosity got the better of me.

So one day when I was at Wal-Mart I happend to walk through the 'crafting supplies' section and saw that they had these inexpensive (less than $2.oo U.S.) small cross stitch projects. "Oh, what the heck..." I thought and bought My First Cross Stitch Project! It was a simple smiley face design (I like smiley faces!) that took me about a week to finish. You have to keep in mind that I was just starting out and was rather nervous about doing it 'the right way'. (I tend to be a perfectionist too, BTW...) It turned out pretty good and now adornes our refrigerator as a fridge magnet.

Since then, I have made many other projects and have been stitching happily ever since. Okay that has not always been true (look at the 'Newton's Law' project) but for the most part it has been pretty fun.

And believe it or not, I actually have a fair sized stash of my own. Without actually counting them, I can safely say that I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 dozen+ patterns that are 'mine'; or at least mine in the sense that I picked them out or asked Kim to get them for me. FYI: about half of them are small like the smiley face mentioned above. The other half are bigger, more complicated projects like the Calla Lillies that I just finished for Kim, as well as the soon to be started 'The Red Bicycle'. (I am itching to be stitching that, sotospeak...)

Well faithful readers, I am afraid that my wealth (overabundance?) of words has finally run out. That -coupled with the fact that it is now 10:00 p.m. CDT- means that I better shut The Machine here down and call it a night. I PROMISE that I will be starting on the red bike soon. REALLY! Honest and for true too. ;-)

Until then, keep your stitches crossed and your smiles smiling!

P.S.: Feel free to send me a note if there is anything else you might be curious about and I will be happy to reply. :-)