I don’t come from a family that hands down expensive heirlooms. No Chippendale furniture, gilt-framed watercolors, or fancy china sets await me or either of my siblings. But I do come from a family whose currency is time and attention.
I can’t recall exactly how old I was when my mother first pressed the rough cross-stitch Aida fabric into my small hands, but I do remember—vividly—that my older sister, Alice, had already mastered the craft. Whether it was out of true curiosity or competitive spirit, I paid rapt attention as my mother showed me how to thread a needle, stitch a cross, and line them up, one after another, to make a picture. It was a challenge and a wonder wound into one.
Despite my eagerness, the obstacles were plentiful. As I tugged on the thread, it slipped from the eye of the needle time and time again. I’d make meticulous progress on the front only to turn the piece over and discover that I’d spun an accidental rat’s nest on the back. Once I was able to read patterns on my own, I miscounted stitches or used the wrong shade of thread, often having no choice but to double back—painstakingly undoing what I had considered complete. Eventually, the demands of life crept in. Homework assignments mounted, time spent with friends became my top priority, and the hobby—as I increasingly wondered whether it was worth the time it cost—faded into the background.
Only later in life—once again inspired by my sister, this time without a hint of competitiveness—did I return to cross-stitch. Burned out from my phone, that constant companion promising me that I was only one self-help book away from enlightenment or one shopping haul away from true beauty, I made a pact with myself to put the device down at the end of the day. I craved a return to something simple, something slow. In its place I picked up my cross-stitch. It was like reuniting with an old friend.
Almost instantly, my shoulders dropped. My breathing slowed. I focused on the pattern—counting stitches, checking thread shades. The world and its weight became the universe’s problem. And I was reminded of the quiet joy that comes from making something beautiful without a larger purpose lingering in the background.
I spent about two years stitching a 14-by-18-inch tapestry of The Strawberry Thief by William Morris, a pattern full of leafy vines, blue scrolls, and open-throated feathered thrushes encroaching on leafy vines of ruby red strawberries. When I finished, I was thrilled with how it turned out and proud to have completed such a large-scale work. I promised myself I’d pony up the cash to have it professionally framed to hang in the living room of our Georgia home. Even better, though, was my 5-year-old daughter’s reaction. She grabbed my phone, directed me to hold up the needlepoint, and snapped a picture—one she requested that I send to her teacher. I didn’t oblige, but the off-center photo, which also captured the faded spot of carpet where our dog sleeps every night, will remain a cherished memento nonetheless.
It’s a reminder that creating solely for the sake of itself is always worth our time and attention. That even as our lives move increasingly online, it’s still in the real-world stuff—the fabric that sits between fingers young and old, the stitches formed meticulously, one at a time—where the actual magic lies.
—Grace Helena Walz is the author of Good Hair Days and the forthcoming Pretty as a Peach.
