My First "Borrowed" Pattern

I was going through some old family photos the other day and discovered I actually did have a picture of the first cross stitch pattern I ever took on. Its one that I have described before, where I took a simple pattern of two girls sitting back-to-back, changed the dress colors and shapes a little and then braided embroidery thread into "hair" tied with a floss bow.

I had first spotted this pattern in a catalog called The Stitchery, that used to come addressed to my mother.  It turns out that the catalog is still in business, though you can get a much better look now that companies host websites, rather than the old days of seeing a tiny picture, calling the toll free number and ordering over the phone.

As I didn't have a credit card (being around 14 at the time), and with a 14-year old's lack of money in general, I took a magnifying glass and a piece of graph paper and then painstakingly drew out the pattern, adjusting where I liked, and, for a pattern that is fairy basic shapes, this took hours and a lot of eyestrain.

Between things like this and my penchant for late-night reading by flashlight, this is why I now wear bi-focal glasses, and, sadly, I have begun to accept that tri-focals would benefit me better (which is pathetic, as I am only 48, and should have decades of lovely crafty projects yet awaiting me to tackle them, without need for magnifcation!)

But for now, back to my story...

As soon as I had the pattern worked out, I got into my mother's embroidery supplies (lots of colorful skeins, all tangled around one another...not sure what happened there. I wound up eventually "inheriting" the mess and spent several happy days, salvaging as much of the thread as I could, but that's another story), I pulled out the colors that appealed to me, found a piece of Aida cloth that was a suitable size, and dove in.

Original dresses in pink and purple (at least, my memory remembers it used colors I wasn't thrilled about, nor that could be found in mom's eclectic stash). I was really into blue back in the 1980's (when this little caper all went down...statute of limitations should be passed on "borrowing" the pattern, right?) I pulled a lighter blue to represent my best friend, Corine (an adorable little blonde who, I have to say is still adorable now) and then a darker blue for myself (chunky brunette who grew chunkier as the years have passed). 

While I like Holly Hobbie, the huge move to homespun girls in big bonnets and no faces always bothered me. I tried sketching smaller bonnets and little faces, but it never looked right, so, I thought, "well why not try giving them hair" to personalize them a bit. Stitched hair looked silly and I was getting frustrated at my lack of skills when it dawned on me to try something different. I pulled thread through, braided it and then tied it with a corresponding thread.

Surprisingly, it looked good, and I liked the depth it brought to the little girls.

It took ages to figure out how best to do backstitch (self taught, make-it-up-as-I-go girls do NOT let silly things like backstitch hold them back)! By the time I finished the project that poem was memorized FOR LIFE. Yes, 34 years later and I can still recite that little ditty:

We've shared so much laughter

Shared so many tears,

We've a spiritual kindship

That grows stronger every year

We're not sisters by birth

But we knew from the start

God put us together 

To be sisters by heart.

As soon as it was done my mom had it framed and I then gave it to my best friend. I am pretty sure she still has it, but then, I've never asked. Years later, when she got married, I gave her a stitched piece with Hunca Munca watching over the children sleeping in a basket, figuring it would be darling for a nursery (thankfully, her firstborn was a girl).

Its a total surprise that I would still have this photo lurking amongst my family photos, but maybe not as surprising as I first thought...after all, it WAS my first project, and mom was pretty proud of me for the determination of taking a 3 or 4" catalog photo and making it into reality.  She was probably surprised I had a finished project, as I was notorious for not finishing things back then (and yes, even now, depending on the situation),  It makes sense that that mom would want to capture the moment.

Regardless of the reasons, I am very happy to see this little gem, and thankful that it doesn't make me cringe in any way. Trust me, I have short stories and drawings from my teenage years that really should be burned,,,not all of them, but the BattleStar: Galactica stories with me saving Starbuck and his smelly cigar from the Cylons are definitely meant for the scrap heap!

So what memories do you have of your first projects?