Can someone tell me why Just Cross Stitch continues to print Martha Beth Lewis’s bloated articles? A dissertation on finding the center of fabric with a coda about using Bent Creek’s or Twisted Threads’s three inch squares so you can start in the lower left or upper right corners… A Dickensian novel on replacing threads… Way too much about putting a needle into a hole in fabric... A Dummies manual on making an x...
I don’t mean to suggest that there is nothing complicated about counted thread work, no matter what the needlepointers say, especially when you consider that so many of the more interesting patterns that are coming out these days include several stitches. Beats the hell out of paint-by-numbers that’s involved in most needlepoint. How many people actually do a pattern the way it’s printed? Do we really need Ms Lewis explaining every step to us? Could she be more condescending?
Take the most recent article—the article on substituting threads. Pages and pages dedicated to considering what color to use, how thick the floss should be, what the luster will add to the mix. Any stitcher who doesn’t know that you should use flosses of equivalent thicknesses on fabric (or change the fabric, duh) ought to have her scissors taken away from her.
But in the end, I read them all—every word. It’s like watching a car crash. But when, oh when, will we get those pages back? Pages for designs, pages that interest even a smattering of the readership.
Next up: what’s the deal with Jesus?
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