When I was a child I was always making different handmade crafts for my Mother.  I was always bring home projects from school; and during the summer, I made various items while attending the Township Playground Program. Then my mother taught me how to do cross stitch. Of course back then (we're talking about 45 years ago), I used stamped cross stitch, which I believe to be the easiest. All you need to do is follow the color chart for the pattern printed on the material. I was always amazed, that after you were done with your product and once you washed it; the light blue printing all went away and the hand stitched design was all that was left. My mother, bless her heart, still has some of the pieces I made when I was a child. And when I look at the quality of the stitchery from back then, I just laugh to myself; because I would not accept that quality of work today. But when it is your child that makes you a gift, you have a tendency cherish it to the point of never wanting to give it up. How many items do you have in the cupboard, closet or basement that one of your children made for you?

Now that I'm much older, I have taken on the challenge of completing counted cross stitch patterns. They are much more tedious and require an eye for meticulous detail. And yes, I have made my fair share of mistakes; where I had to go back and rip out several rows of work to fix a miscount of stitches. I learned very quickly that I could not do multitasking projects when sewing my counted cross stitch work. But, the final results are well worth the time and effort.

I really enjoy doing different seasonal table cloths, table runners and pictures. The compliments my work received at craft shows, always made me feel good. It was nice that people would appreciate the time and effort that went into my work. There are kits and patterns for all kinds of items; such as, baby bibs and blankets, birth and wedding announcements, table clothes, runners and napkin sets, pictures and much more. They even have computer programs that can design any picture into a cross stitch pattern. What will they come up with next?

There is another way you can obtain a pattern that you may like. That is, if the pattern can be found in either a mosaic tile, plastic canvas, latch hook and some needle point patterns, you can convert it to cross stitch; because, they are all based on individual color block squares. Then, the challenge would be to find the equivalent floss color to match-up with the color chart pattern.

If you are interested in getting started there are many different stamped cross stitch kits and counted cross stitch patterns available. I have listed several items on this page or you can do a computer search on "stamped cross stitch" or "counted cross stitch". Keep in mind, when you enter a phrase into a search site, you may want to put the quotes around it, so the search engine looks for the whole phrase, instead of just each individual word. I hope you will take some time to learn this ancestral craft. Happy stitching.