Cross stitchers comparing themselves to others

I belong to a number of cross stitch groups on social media, and I keep seeing the same questions over and over again.  I don’t answer some of the questions because I know that every cross stitcher is different, so why are we trying to compare ourselves to another stitcher?

Questions that I see so often in various cross stitch groups

1. How many stitches do you do a day?

I think it depends on how long you stitch each day and the project that you are working on. If I am working on a monochrome piece, I can get a lot more stitches in compared to a project that has a lot of colour changes. So, I don’t have a good answer for this question. I stitch when I can and enjoy seeing what I have been able to get done in the day. I normally look at my progress for a week instead of a day. Not only that, but I take pictures of the projects that I worked on in that week so that I can see the change.

2. It took me almost 2 hours to stitch 100 stitches of confetti, why am I so slow?

If you are working on a heavy confetti section, it can take a long time to get through that little section. Each time you must change a colour it takes time away from the adding a stitch to the project.

3. How can I stitch faster?

Cross stitch isn’t a race, and you should enjoy the time you have to do a project. I will not compare my stitching time to anyone else, because everyone has their way of stitching. You will notice that you seem to stitch faster when you don’t have a complicated pattern or when you are using one colour in a large area.

4. I can see the background fabric when I finished stitching, what can I do to improve this?

This is one of the comments I can a lot, and what I always say it to look at the project from a minimum of 3 feet away. When we are stitching the piece, it is close to our face, but when it is finished and displayed, we aren’t looking at it as close.

5. The pattern calls for 25 count fabric, but I don’t want to use that fabric, can I change it?

The simple answer to this question is yes, you can change the fabric that you are going to stitch on. One time that changing the fabric size isn’t the best is if your pattern is using beads and the specific beads need to fix into a certain area. Another time when changing the fabric size might not be a good idea is if the project is to fit into a specific item for finishing.

These are only a few of the questions that I regularly see in the different cross stitch groups. The biggest thing I can say is that cross stitch is a hobby that we should be enjoying doing and if we are comparing ourselves to someone else that can be taking away the joy of the craft.

The one thing that I have done that has helped me be a lot happier with my stitching is not comparing the number of finishes that I have each year with someone else. I know that I like stitching larger projects, so I am not going to get as many finishes as something that likes to stitch very small projects. My cross stitch is one of my hobbies, and it helps me de-stress and stitch my mind back together, so that makes me happy.

 

#24HoursOfCrossStitch

 

This is a Facebook group and is for people that really enjoy cross stitching. I am going to try and explain a bit about the group and some of the fun activities that this group also does. One thing I can say is great about this group is you get to see what other cross-stitchers are working on. It’s a great place to get ideas of new projects that you might want to do.

Monthly events

This group has a monthly acrostic that you can work on. An acrostic is, you take a phrase and then using each letter in the phrase or word, you try and match a project to it and then set a goal for each of the letters. The monthly acrostic is something that you can work on, and you don’t have to share what you are working on with anyone if you don’t want to. You are also the one that determines your goal, and those again don’t need to be shared.

Here is an example of an acrostic “KIT UP YOUR JOY” or “SILK OR COTTON”. You now get to determine how your projects can fit into the acrostic, and you then determine the goal for each of the projects. Here are some ideas of what you can use to determine a project fitting into an acrostic. The ideas could be:

• Name of pattern
• Designer’s name
• A feature in the project

How for your goal here are some of the ideas that I have heard within the group

• Kit up the project
• Stitch “X” number of stitches
• Stitch “X” number of hours
• A page finish
• Finish the project

The purpose of the acrostic is too just to help you move your project or projects forward. You don’t have to show anyone your acrostic or your progress if you don’t want to. This is just a fun way to try and touch a bunch of projects and make some progress on them.

#24HOCS Marathon

Now, this is a quarterly event that happens, and it is a lot of fun. The goal of the weekend is to try and stitch as much as you can within the three days. Yes, the overall goal is to try and stitch for 24 hours, but every bit of time you spend stitching is good, and it moves your stitching forward.

The weekend is all about having fun and setting aside time to work on your stitching. Yes, it says 24 hours of cross stitch, but a lot of people just do as much as they can within the three days. Some people can only do one or two days and there aren’t any rules, so you do what you want to do. There are some people that book a hotel room or a cabin where they can go so that they can focus on stitching and not have to worry about family or other responsibilities. This might sound a bit overboard to some people but when you are a wife, mother, and work full time making that bit of time for yourself can be very important.

I have tried to achieve the 24 hours of stitching over three days, but so far I haven’t achieved it. Each quarter, I will keep trying to see if I can eventually achieve those 24 hours. I do know that there are weekends where I have been to get 15 hours of stitching done over the three days, so that is good.

Overall

This Facebook group is a lot of fun to belong to, as there isn’t any pressure to achieve the 24 hours of stitching each quarter. We do cheer each other on, no matter how many hours of stitching we achieved. It is a lot of fun to sit back and say it’s the 24-hour marathon weekend, and I am going to see what I can get done. I haven’t done any of the acrostics yet, but maybe one month I will look at the acrostic and give it a try.

For me, this is a group that I enjoy belonging to because I get to see the different projects people are working on, and it helps motivate me to stitch.

 

My finishes vs Your Finishes

Something that really bothers me is when I see it on FlossTube videos or other posts on social media is when someone says, “This is my x finish for the year, and it’s only April.” Quite often the number they are saying is something like my 30^th or my 42^nd finish. As if each of these finishes were of substantial size, not the size that they did.

I like seeing people getting finishes, but what they don’t really say is that their finishes are all small projects. Yes, small projects like 40 stitches by 40 stitches and a big one might be something like 80 x 60. I do enjoy doing these projects, but one of the things about these are the patterns better be either free or just a couple of dollars and available as a PDF. Patterns that are small and can be finished within a day or two are not comparable to a larger project.

In some cases, people that are saying how many finishes that they have for the year, and you hear that or see it on social media, and you don’t realize the sizes of projects they do it can be extremely disheartening to someone else. I know for me, I enjoy working on larger projects and if I can get even 12 or 14 finishes in a year, I am happy with that. I also work on full coverage pieces, so they take even longer to get finished.

Yes, I enjoy watching people get finishes, but I also realize that the sizes of their projects versus the sizes of my projects are very different. It’s currently almost the end of April and I can say that I have 2 finishes, and both are around the 130 x 130 stitch count size. So yes, I have some finishes, and I am happy with them, and I know that my stitching is what makes me happy. I am also working on a couple of other projects, one of which is full coverage, so it isn’t going to be finished for a while. So, when I say I have a finish, I am normally talking about something that is larger and takes more time to finish.

My word of advice is when you are showing a finish on social media remember that you know how many projects you have finished for the year, but not everyone else needs to know the number after each finish. Save that for the end of the year when you are showing all the finishes you have done and then people will see the standard size you do. It would be great if at the end of the year, you highlight the larger projects that you finished. With this, I am now going to go and work on one of my cross-stitch pieces and see how it goes.