Cross Stitching: My New Hobby

This year Stephen and I decided that for Valentine's Day we had to give each other handmade gifts only.  No cards, no fantastic presents, handmade only.  I struggled for a while to come up with something to make.  I'm crafty, but I didn't want to make something I've already made before.  I needed something new.

When I was little I remember my Grandma cross stitching and being fascinated watching something come from string and little x's.  I loved the backs as much as fun as the fronts.  I decided that I'd teach myself how to cross stitch and make something funny for Stephen.

Of course I turned to Pinterest and Etsy for inspiration.

From this AMAZING Etsy shop

This Etsy Shop

The two above, and about 30 other ones made my short list of inspiration but ultimately I decided that I wanted to create my own design.  It would have been SO much easier to pick one of the designs from a shop and buy the template for download, but I don't always do easy.  After some Google searching I found this website that I ended up using to create the text that I wanted to use.  There are a TON of fonts out there, but I liked this site because I was able to write what I wanted and print it out at home.

Next I had to figure out how to lay everything out on a template so I had something to follow.  This is where I almost threw in the towel.  I tried to do it in a fancy new Excel program that takes an image and converts it to small squares but it never worked out right.  I was almost in tears and ended up telling Stephen what I was going to make him so he could try to help.  In the end I turned to trusty old, regular Excel and plotted it in squares.  Definitely not my recommended route, but I was on a time crunch and needed to get moving.

For my Valentine's Day gift I stitched a phrase that I say to Stephen all the time.  He finds it creepy and silly which only encourages me to say it more often.  I have no idea where it came from, but it's stuck with us know.

I'm working on framing it and I think I'm going to hang it in our guest bathroom.  We are actually very short on wall space in the house.  We both love artwork so much we're running out of room.  My cousin has asked me to make me one of these for her because she says something similar to her husband all the time, too.  I guess weird runs in our family.