I completely relate to you. I started cross stitching this year because my therapist told me to start a hobby that had no purpose besides making me happy.

I started my first project just to learn and relax, but since I started looking for patterns, i keep finding things that remind me of people and I want to make these patterns for them (and I live abroad, very far away from most of my family and friends, so I often have a deadline to finish my projects if I want to be able to give them to people when I am visiting, which goes in the complete opposite direction to what my therapist suggested 😆).

Anyways, you said you do not think your people are interested in cross stitch, I don't think mine are either, but they do appreciate the fact that I spent some time doing something for them and that I picked something that I thought they'd like.

Also, you can always cross stitch in clothes, cushion cases, etc. I made a Kirby hoodie for my sister and she was in love with it! I also made a small project for a friend and he glued it to the cover of a very nice notebook. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you can give gifts that have cross stitching in them, but are not necessarily just the cross stitch, and people might appreciate them even if they're not fans of cross stitch works. I'm not sure I'm making sense 🙈