One extremely boring night in my household, my step mom and I were sitting on the couch. I was watching T.V and my mom was trying to finish up a cross-stitch that she has been working on almost two years now, for my step sister, Sam. It’s a momma polar bear and her two babies. To me it also looks like they’re stuck in a snowstorm. She learn to cross-stitch when she was in high school. I thought that was really cool.

“Hey, mom? Do you think you can teach me how to cross-stitch one of these days? I really want to know how to.” I asked.

“Yeah, I would be glad to teach you. When I go shopping at Michaels to get more string, I’ll find something for you to do.” My mom said with excitement.

Two really long weeks later, when I got home from a boring day at school, I walked into my bedroom and there on my bed was a plastic bag. I put my backpack beside my night stand, sat down on my bed. I opened up the plastic bag and looked inside. Deep down in the bag was a peace sign cross-stitch. The front was filled with purple, orange, green, blue, and yellow, it looked like a rainbow had thrown its colorful lunch on the front of the cross-stitch. I walked out into the living room and said thanks to my mom. She smiled and told me to take everything out of the little plastic bag. I did a she told me and inside I pulled out some string colored purple, orange, yellow, blue, and green just like the front. There were these two black circles one was bigger than the other but they were as small as a tennis ball maybe little smaller. There was also a needle like the one you would normally use for sewing up a hole in a pair of clothing. After that I pulled a sheet of white fabric out, it was kind of thin like paper but hard like a book cover, with little tiny holes like a mechanical pencil led could fit in it. I also pulled out the directions with the color of the string and what shape it goes to and where to put it, also how to keep the string from coming out of the fabric. My mom taught me a different way than the one on the direction.

“Now take one of the strings, lets do orange okay. Put the ends of the strings by each other and cut it in half.” my mom said.

“Wow she sounds just like one of my teachers. Great now I feel like I am at school again”, I thought as I took the orange string, cutting it in half.

“Now take six little strands, good now put those six stands through the needle... Okay now here comes the tough part. Are you sure you're ready for this?” She said as I did everything she told me to do.

“Yes” I said with excitement.

She put the two black circles on both sides of the fabric. I call it making a sandwich so I won’t forget that important part. She then handed me the sandwich looking fabric with the black circles on both sides.

“Now take the needle with the string and put it through the back of the fabric. The smaller black circle is the back of the fabric. Good now take the needle and string and put it in the next hole down and to the right from the one you have it in. Next take the needle and put it through the hole above the one you just did. Then take it and put it in the hole down and to the left making an X. Now follow the colors on the direction so it matches on the fabric. If you mess up just come and show me.”

I finally got a hang on it. It took at least a week to finish. It turned out really cool. The yellow and green are in the middle (one of the yellow’s ‘ran’ to the green side) blue and orange are on the outside and the purple is the outline of the peace from the outside to the middle where it is cut in thirds. It is now in a frame that look like the Earth, I call it world peace.The frame is sitting on my dresser. I had a blast making the cross-stitch, I wanted to do another one but this time I wanted to make one for my best friend Helen Schmid. So when we went to Michaels again, I got myself a frog with words that says “first one to smile wins”.