Today’s project was not only fun, it was a stroll down ‘stitching’ memory lane.

My mom-in-law taught me to cross stitch when I was 15 (no she wasn’t my mom-in-law then, but Mike and I were going steady 🙂 ).  She cross-stitched beautifully and was a wonderful teacher.  I was hooked right away.  My first project was actually a gift for my mom for Mother’s Day – a flowered heart, if I remember correctly.  Not sure if my mom still has it, but that was my entry into the stitching world.  I continued to work on pieces, collect patterns and DMC floss well into my late 20’s.  After a while, I became busy with work and interested in other hobbies and cross-stitching kind of went by the wayside.  I still have many patterns, fabric and floss.

For a number of years, though, I really enjoyed it and for one of my birthdays, Mike, in a wonderfully romantic gesture, drove down to the local craft store (Your Creations), grabbed a basket and proceeded to buy every skein of DMC floss they carried.  There were more than a few ladies in the store that day that thought he was the sweetest guy ever.  I spent the next week wrapping each skein around those cardboard floss organizers and tucking them into plastic storage bins.

I thought about all of these things while I stitched away at my pumpkin today.  As you know, I like pumpkins, and when I saw this tutorial over at makeandtakes.com I had to dig out my floss and start stitching.

I love when hobbies overlap and as you’ll discover soon enough, I also really enjoy card making, so this project combined my card making love with my embroidery/stitching love.  As you see I didn’t complete the card today, but I did finish stitching the pumpkin and will share the card in a few days.

Because I was stitching onto cardstock, I had to print out the pattern and then punch holes into the cardstock.  I then stitched through the holes and voila, a stitched pumpkin!  This technique works well with lined art and I’m considering a dog paw next.  Stay tuned… 

“Hey mom, Woody says you should stitch a dog bone on his Christmas stocking… ah, no I misunderstood.  He tends to mumble.  He said you should stick a dog bone in his Christmas stocking.  Isn’t he just full of good ideas?”