Something New

I just learned to cross stitch. What with one thing and another, I've had my hand in a whole lot of craft pies. Between Campfire (which, yes, I was in until I was sixteen) and my parents' commitment to providing me with awesome things to do, I hooked rugs, made coiled bowls from rags, carved stamps out of soap, made quite elaborate puppets (a paper mache and fabric cat named Gorgeous who had a rhinestone in her nose was one masterpiece I remember from grade school), made paper, learned to spin, to weave, joined knitting 4-H and knit one long row while listening to Vanilla Ice over and over again, embroidered "Stacy + Bryan" and other similar phrases on pillows for my middle school friends, made a soft-sculpture telephone, and, well, more. I didn't do much of it for long, but I have a basic understanding of a lot of crafts, especially those involving needle and thread. I did not, however, learn to cross stitch. In fact I had no idea how or with what it was done.

Turns out you get some special fabric with squares on it and you just embroider x's.

But here's the thing that is interesting to me about cross stitch right now: it looks pixelated. I kept looking at cross stitched stuff and wondering what it was that made it look kind of hip. Then Scott saw the awesome Russiany lampshade I got on clearance at Urban Outfitters and saw pixels where I saw needlework. Oh, of course, I thought. That's what it is that's appealing about these designs I'm drawn to--the weird overlap between the retro dorkiness of cross stitch and the retro dorkiness of pixelation.

And then, of course, there's just something so pleasing about all this revival of the most quaint needlecrafts. Not your granny's cross stitch and all, you know.

My dear friend Mary Mac got me interested in this. She admitted she enjoyed the art form, but didn't like the patterns she could find. I pointed her to Subversive Cross Stitch for inspiration, and found this pattern and others like it on Etsy, created by WabiSabi. Then I decided to do them myself. Sorry Mary.

And, yes. I followed a pattern. But I see no reason why you couldn't create your own with relative ease. The drawback to cross stitching is that it is time-consuming. This took me five episodes of My So Called Life (in a row). And it's a super simple pattern.