I started cross stitching when I was 15. I went to girls’ camp and took a craft class. I knew how to embroider and cross stitch (stamped, natch), so I thought I knew what I was doing and didn’t wait for the teacher to explain why I had a pattern and gingham fabric. But it didn’t take me long to figure it out. And I was hooked. So here I am, 25+ years later, still chugging along the ever-widening path of cross stitch aka counted thread embroidery.

It’s funny. One day, I was complaining to my husband that all my friends from high school and college are still doing the same hobbies they did when I knew them and naturally getting better at their chosen avocations all the time—and I just flit from one thing to another, never getting any better at any one thing—and then I remembered this.

Needlework is just such a part of my life that I take it for granted and never give it the credit it deserves. This collection is far from my entire body of work, as I failed to take pictures of many projects.