This post was originally in XStitch Magazine Issue 17: Adventure, and has been adapted.

Here I sit, with a blank screen in front of me, tea in my hand, about to write this piece. What many people don’t know about me is that I’m an obsessive tea drinker. I’ve tried over 2000 teas in the last 6 years and have a log with scores and flavor profiles. I’m obsessed with not only the flavors, but how varied they are.

One of the biggest differences in flavor is the location the tea is grown in. Much like a fine wine; the soil science, the temperature, the season, the bug life, the sun’s orientation to the plant, all have an impact on the end brew.
This particular tea is Kenyan, a black tea. Kenya actually produce a lot of tea, it’s one of the largest producers of tea in the world, the 3rd largest after China and India. Most of the tea you get in bags comes from Kenya and has in the past has been regarded as poorer quality.

But that’s not fair or true. Kenyan tea can be very fine indeed. This brew is heavy, smoky, has hints of bark, yet the finishing flourish is that of sweetness. By smelling its smoky elixir I’m taken to the plains of Africa, where its evocative name of “Lion’s Paw” helps to sell the message (although this is of course marketing talk, Kenyan tea is grown on mountain sides away from lions). I can feel the breeze, the sun, the warmth, I can feel Kenya. Simply by sipping my brew I’m on an adventure in Kenya.
Or what I think Kenya is like, I’ve never been there…

So, why am I telling you all of this? Because cross stitch is the same. OK, you might not taste cross stitch (although I’m sure we’ve all licked a thread or two in our time), and you don’t smell it, but by cross stitching you take yourself on an adventure. An adventure without leaving your house, an adventure that is made up of feelings rather than actual places. When you stitch a Mars based cross stitch, you might not have been there, but you can imagine it, you can feel it.

Initially, your tools are the first adventure you take. The fabric you use, the cotton threads, they’ve been on a journey in their own right before they even reach you. DMC threads even describe their products as “beautiful eastern-inspired, European-made textiles”. Before you’ve even got them in your hands they’ve been on an adventure from the East, across the silk road and onto textile visionaries in Europe. The cotton is probably produced in America, shipped to factories and blended with dyes made from natural materials from around the globe.

You then pull up your pattern. And that is in itself its own adventure. If you’ve designed it yourself everything about it is an adventure. If it’s a new style or has a new stitch, or uses the dreaded metallic threads; it’s even more of an adventure. When I first started stitching I knew I would probably fail, after all there had to be a reason people didn’t make transforming dolls out of plastic canvas. But the adventure showed me that actually, it’s possible (but rather complicated).

Then you have the act of stitching itself. We labor over our works hour after hour, making perfectly lined up cross stitches, sticking to the pattern where appropriate, but maybe making a few changes here and there. Don’t like the look of that placement? Change it slightly. Don’t like the color of that umbrella? Change it. These are the things that make it an adventure, and for most of us, this is why we cross stitch.

But there’s something that’s always bothered me about this. Many people say that “the journey is more important than the destination”, and I wholeheartedly agree, but that doesn’t mean the destination should be ignored totally.

A recent trend online at the moment is to post images of where you stitch, be it a chair, a desk, a whole room, or even in some cases whole buildings! But these pictures all had one thing in common; lack of finished works being shown off.

For me, I love to stitch Japanese inspired pieces. The simple reason is it reminds me of my time spend in Japan. And whilst the adventure of stitching does that for me, why does it have to end at the last stitch? Many people store their completed works in long term storage. Others choose to add their work to an ever increasing collection of works on a wall, which based on how fast some of you stitch could easily wallpaper a mansion.
But neither of these really give credence to the work. It just becomes another piece where we’ve lost or forgotten the adventure.

So I propose we should make a change. And for this; I thank a redditor. In their house, specifically their hallway, but it could be anywhere, they have a hook. Just one; and that’s important. Every time they finish a work, they hang it up on that hook. Every time they walk past they see it again.
They chose the pattern as it looked great, maybe it reminded them of a previous adventure, or maybe it pushed them outside of their comfort zone, pushing them into a new adventure. But being up on the wall, on its own, they get to see that adventure every time they walk by.

Now I know some of us hate framing with a passion, and their houses might not work for a single hook idea (mine doesn’t either), but enjoying the finished cross stitch is something most of us don’t do. Maybe hang it (rather than framing it), or put it under glass on a coffee table, or just leave it out. But enjoy it.
Let the adventure continue once you reach the destination. Enjoy

Happy stitching!
Lord Libidan