I love to hear about crafts from the perspective of people who’ve been at it for a while, because they often learn things they wish they knew when they were first learning how to do that particular craft that are useful for newbies (and those with more experience) to think about or try for themselves.
In this case we’ve got a post/podcast episode from Hannah Hand Makes about seven things she wishes she knew before she started cross stitching. It’s worth a read for the full list because there are definitely things on there I haven’t considered or tried before (not that I’m all that seasoned when it comes to cross stitching, but still).
One that I do want to make special note of is that she says she wishes she knew big projects aren’t as frustrating as she thought they would be.
She says that she never thought she had the patience for big projects and that she would get bored before they were done, but it helps her to have some smaller projects on the go at the same time so she doesn’t have to work a big project straight through.
That’s good advice. I generally am only working one cross stitch project at a time and I know that I do get bored and set it aside, even when it’s not that big of a project!
Another one that probably goes hand in hand with stitching larger projects is realizing there are lots of different ways to finish cross stitch projects rather than just putting them all in hoops to display. Hoops are really cute (and I actually just wrote about a couple of ways to finish hoops for framing cross stitch) but you can use regular frames, turn your projects into pillows and lots of other things depending on the size of the finished project.
Check out all her thoughts at Hannah Hand Makes. I’d love to hear what you wish you knew when you were newer to stitching than you are now!
[Photo: Hannah Hand Makes]
