Looking back over 10 years - Cross Stitch

November 08, 2023

My personal history with cross stitching goes back a lot longer than my spinning and knitting, and even my quilting. Like a lot of my generation, I learned to cross stitch as a young teenager. I believe (and I wish I still had) the first thing I ever finished - a jar topper for a jelly jar. It was stitched on white aida with DMC threads.

Over the years from that point on, I picked up and put down my cross stitching pretty regularly. I usually had at least one project in progress through the years, usually some kind of Christmas ornament or decoration. (I remember stitching an entire set of stockings with each name in metallic floss...back when metallic floss was just awful to work with! :)

Now here's a little something most people don't know. We actually launched a cross stitch design business back in 2004. My husband was finishing his business degree and his final assignment was to create a business plan for a new business. We took it one step further and actually did it.

I was deep into cross stitch at that time and had been playing around with some designs, so I came up with 6 original designs. We created a logo, a website and tried to get picked up with Norden Crafts (a distributor). All of this was pre-social media, pre-Etsy, and definitely pre-easy website set-up. 

The distributor declined, the website sat there with no traffic, and we definitely didn't have any money to try to go to market or advertise. We did a couple of small shows and it just kind of fizzled and faded away. After a while, I began October House Fiber Arts.

I don't quite remember what made me work on some new knitting-themed designs. I mean, yes, I was dyeing yarn and knitting a lot. So, of course, that all spilled over into what I chose to design. But who can say what made that inclination to design flare up again? 

But those designs struck a chord with people and I was pleasantly surprised at how well they did. So, I dusted off the old skills and got to work!

So, even though my cross stitch designs are the "newest" part of October House Fiber Arts' story...they are actually the oldest part of my creative process. 

 

Now, they are a full time (and I mean full time) business and personal passion! Next year, I will gain a much needed partner and co-worker when my husband joins me full-time. He's already October House's biggest fan and cheerleader. Plus he spends a lot of his free time right now folding, stuffing, shipping and hauling. 

These are exciting days for us, and we can't wait to see what the future holds!

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