Sunday, May 28, 2006

A stitch in time


Yesterday, Lucy wrote that, after a long break, she has picked up her cross stitch again. Yay! I sometimes set mine aside for months at a time and I don't understand why -- I always feel such joy when I return to it. Stitching both excites and soothes me. Lucy laments the lack of cool cross stitch patterns out there, and I have to second her. While I am a fan of certain companies' patterns (Birds of a Feather, The Prairie Schooler), in general I find that the widely available patterns are sort of, well, icky. I'm just not into kittens and flowers and snowmen and Bible verses. (Although someday I plan to recreate the scarily religious sampler hanging above the bed in the movie Cold Comfort Farm, the one that says, "No man knoweth the hour of his death.") Right now I'm working on this interesting pattern called Le Printemps from Birds of a Feather. My sister Mary called it "primitive," but that's not the right word. I think it looks like a pencil sketch done in thread -- it has this very un-cross-stitch-like quality to it, which I find fascinating. It should take me about, oh, forever to complete it.

Lucy isn't quite as big a fan of Subversive Cross Stitch as I am. But even more than the actual patterns, I appreciate Julie Jackson's concept: she's designing the kinds of things that she wants to see. Although I'm not as skilled as she (and I certainly can't create anything like Le Printemps), I've started making a few patterns of my own. Here, for instance, is Norman's blog motto:

That's a quote from, I believe, Phantasm. I need to figure out how to add a couple of cross stitch bullet holes to the pattern. And here's a great haiku from Feral Mom:

It still needs something, some kind of image or border, but it's coming along. Maybe I'll scan these and post them after I've stitched them up.

4 comments:

Feral Mom said...

I don't have the patience or the small motor skills for crafty stuff, but I salute those who do. Also, I am thrilled that the donut haiku might make it into stitches. What an honor! I would pay cash money for something like that, especially if the border was comprised of tiny donuts.

Lucy said...

I love the donut as border idea!!

I also love the Le Printemps design. So unique! I can't wait to see it.

Thanks for the suggestions. I could browse all day online. In fact, I'm getting a little concerned...

shandon said...

Mmmmmm... donut border...

Let me see what I can come up with. Thanks for the idea!

Anonymous said...

Another BOAF fan here. I've been trying to collect all their designs lately and found many for 25 cents at Hobby Lobby. I scored many more while in Utah at the shrine. We should talk about Birds of a Feather sometime. Perhaps a SAL would be in order. I'm Adana at adana69 (at) yahoo.com