Learn to cross stitch

“I didn’t think that I wanted to learn how to cross-stitch, but apparently I just needed a gateway book. Because now that I’m two whole projects deep, I love it! [...] With my first stitches, I put the x’s next to each other, but not, like, in the same holes, and I had to sit there and stare at them for a while, comparing back and forth with the illustration in the book, before I finally realized how you’re supposed to place them. [...] It took me forever to realize that the pattern has darker lines every five squares, which made the counting maybe 5% easier, but I still feel like I have to count the pattern squares about fourteen times, then the squares on the fabric about twelve times, then check back to the pattern to make sure it’s right, and then to the fabric again to make sure I wasn’t crazy the last time I counted. WHY IS IT SO HARD!!!!!”

“Since I cannot paint, I decided to cross stitch - this was only my first major cross stitch project, and one tip I can give you if you are a beginner too - cross stitching is quite a slow craft, so choose a subject that you really love to make, as you will be spending a LOT of time cross stitching it before it is actually completed. Therefore Michael Jackson was a perfect subject for me to learn to cross stitch.”