{Throwback Thursday} This is How it Started...

Before the kids were born, I spent quite a few years working night shifts in a call center. Late at night, there were long stretches of time to fill between emergencies. I worked a lot of solo graveyard shifts and read enough books to finally discover that, even for a lifelong bookaholic, there are limits. 

Some of the operators knitted. One did needlepoint on gorgeous, impossibly expensive (for my budget at least) hand pained canvases. And at some point shortly before I quit working there, I stumbled across the kit for this embroidered angel doll.   

I can't remember where I bought it or why I bought it, but I do remember the number of hours I put in trying to get her done before Christmas (probably of  2000 or 2001.)  Now I'm trying to figure out how I managed that project, which includes stitches that I probably couldn't do today.

For Christmas that year, I asked for a needlepoint kit. Hubby bought me a counted cross-stitch kit with a gorgeous desert scene. I started it, made a complete mess of things, and gave up. But that's what led me to cross stitching... and then to knitting... and then to quilting.