Cross stitch indeed: a rant.

This may come as a shock to you all, but knitting was not my first love. I didn't learn to knit until I was in college, but I'd been doing needlework for years and years. My big thing for a long time was cross-stitch.

Now, I haven't cross-stitched in something like ten years, but I got a hankering for it last week. Why not, I thought, and picked up a kit at what we'll call Craft Store A. At home, I dug out my needlepoint paraphernalia and set out to stitch. I noticed that the kit was missing the promised needles, but I didn't think that was such a big deal--I had some anyway. A moment of digression: this is the frame I use. The rods I have require that you sew your working fabric to the attached webbing. You then put the rods in the bars and use the knobs to hold everything in place. So I sewed the fabric on, put the frame together, and started to sort the thread . . . only there was no sorting list. Half the instructions were missing. Grrrrrr. No cross-stitch for me!

Fast forward to yesterday, when I went to the grocery store. I wasn't at my usual store, but another across town, which just happens to be next door to Craft Store B. I went in, and they had a ton of stuff on clearance--so I got another kit. I also grabbed another set of rods for my frame (I needed a bigger set, anyway), noting vaguely that the package said something about a "two-part" system. Since I had a frame already, I figured that was what they meant.

At home, I opened up my new kit, checking VERY carefully that all the bits were there. Success! Now to put the fabric on the rods. Um . . . Turns out that, since I'd bought my frame, the company has introduced a patented "no baste" system. Instead of my familiar webbing, attached to the rods is this weird cloth. I need the specific part for the fabric to make it work . . . which of course I didn't have. After a little (okay, a lot of swearing), I decided to go to Craft Store A and see if they had any of this magic no-baste crap.

Turns out, Store A does have the fabric part it--but they don't have it alone. It's all packaged in with rods and frames. More swearing. Facing the prospect of buying a whole 'nother frame just to get the stupid stuff, I take a closer look at it through the package.

It's just velcro. It's just motherfucking velcro.

Literally two yards away, I grab a package of velcro and proceed to buy it in triumph.

I get home, pick up my prize . . . and realize that it is iron-on velcro.

I believe this is the point when I lost my shit.

Anyway, I finally got my fabric in the frame (I will say this, iron-on velcro means business--that shit's not moving), sorted all the colors out, threaded my needle, and finally, at long last, began to cross-stitch.

And then I remembered why I'd quit cross-stitching in the first place. It's fucking boring.

Forgive me, knitting. I will never leave you.

(By the way, if you were under the impression that this was a family blog . . . I do apologize.)