The affair began innocently enough. I had been married for a few months and soon I was bored. I craved a change. I didn’t think it would get serious, but it did and I got in trouble. My husband quickly found out about it and became jealous. Still, he didn’t tell me to stop. I couldn’t believe it! He was going to let me carry on an affair right under his nose and in our own home! That was 18 years ago and it’s still going strong. Would you like to know his name? “He” doesn’t have a name. I’m sorry to say the affair I’ve been having isn’t even with a human. It’s the love I have for a hobby called cross-stitch.

Cross-stitch is a needlework hobby that involves stitching small X’s into a woven fabric like linen to create a design It’s one of those either “you love it or you hate it” kind of hobbies. I have to count the X’s I sew which is why some people become frustrated quickly and give up. I remember a relative looking at me in amazement and exclaiming, “Why would you want to count everything? How can you call this a hobby? I thought hobbies were supposed to be relaxing.” The weird thing is, I do find something soothing about getting totally wrapped up counting and stitching a project. The process erases everything from my mind except the work in front of me. Cross-stitch is my meditation.

I think that’s the reason why my husband jokingly refers to my hobby as my “affair”. I get so involved with what I’m doing that I forget anyone else is in the room and he feels ignored. He gets so excited when I finish a project, but his hopes of having me all to himself are soon dashed when I hold up three charts for a new project and innocently ask, “Honey, which one should I no next?” He just sighs and goes back to watching his I Love Lucy reruns.

I’m running out of wall space at home. As visitors walk through our house, they see everything from my early attempts at primitive looking samplers to my more elaborate, detailed pieces of “art.” Each picture is matted, framed and hung up somewhere in the house. It’s getting so bad that now I actually have a cross-stitch archive in my basement where I rotate pictures throughout the year. Pumpkins and witches are replaced with snowmen and Christmas pictures. In March, the bunnies and flowers come out for spring and summer. You get the idea.