Cross Stitching is very relaxing and concentrating hobby. The process of stitching really could raise your spirits when you see your work transform from one stitch to the whole picture. And it is really exiting to look through different patterns and choose your future work. Now you can find plenty different patterns and styles. You can make a really big pictures for the thousand of stitches or nice small pictures which you can hang all over your place or give them as a gift to your family and friends. But is Cross Stitch Patterns always were the same as now?
Cross Stitching exits for a really long time and it changed through out years. Years ago girls in small villages started cross stitching as young as five years old and did it all their life. But it wasn't just a hobby for them at that time. They stitched not only for their home to make it nice but also they cross stitch their clothes to show everyone how they mastered this craft. In some villages there were days when the girls all over the village showed up in clothes they stitched and people could choose which one were the best master. Sometimes young boys chose a girls for marriage to look through her work. So stitching plaid a big part in girls life.
There were a lot of cross stitch patterns and designs in old times but it wasn't just a regular patterns, all patterns had some meaning and for different purpose people made different designs. For example, weddings always were rich in cross stitch designs which express wishes of long and happy life for newly-married. Patterns in different places had different meanings but usually old designs contained lots of birds (represents beauty and freedom at some nations), trees and sun(usually represent fertility), houses and boats (at some cultures represent wealth). Sometimes this patterns were pretty easy to make but not meaningless. It means that when our ancestors stitched a cloths for particular person they could say who this person was: how old and how rich he/she was, what rank in society he/she has, how wise he/she was and so on. Can you imagine how every big or small celebration people dressed up in a wonderful cloths with stitching from top to bottom and from this stitching you can easily fined out what day they celebrate, what they represent and who they are.
Cross Stitching has a great history and some people still find it interesting to make old style designs. All this designs look really antique, as something forgotten a long time ago but still alive and meaningful. But if you know the route of each Cross Stitch Pattern your work won't be just a craft, it will be a message for everyone.
