SBQ: The Bitch who Stitches

SBQ: How did you decide on the title of your stitching blog? Was it random, or does it have a special meaning to you or about you?

There was this wedding sampler I was stitching for my cousin, bride and groom standing at the edge of a wood surrounded by bushes. Every single stitch in those bushes was a different color. Hundreds of blended needles. I could hardly stitch for the complaining I did. I mostly got through it because a group of us stitched together semi-regularly. Whenever I took it out, they'd say, "here comes the stitch and bitch." In fact, we decided when we opened our stitching store cum bookstore cum coffee shop (no coffee in the stitching area) that we'd call it "Stitch and Bitch." This was before Debbie Stoller took the name for her own, of course.

When I imagined my blog, there were no stitching bloggers (that I had yet found) and I took as my inspiration the Knitting Curmudgeon. Like her, I hated when newbies-who-didn't-know-enough-to-realize-there-was-life-beyond_________ (aida in this case), took over interesting places. I was on rctn in nineteen-dickety-two when there were about 50 posts a week. Fifty intelligent and interesting on topic posts. Then something happened (I blame AOL and compuserve for releasing idiots the ill-prepared into the wilds of the internet). And then there were thousands of posts many of them on homeschooling, dying relatives that needed praying for, and how great Precious Moments kits were. It made me bitchier. And I thought this blogging-thing would give me a chance to unleash my ranting without having to actually read what those others were saying. So I was going to bitch...and the stitch and bitch thing came back to me. (The Knitting Curmudgeon has a lot more fortitude than I do because she continues to read those boards, at least every now and then, for fodder. I can't make myself. Who really cares if Jim-what's-his-name is stitching nude women--it's neither cute nor offensive.)

All this said, with the exception of my rants concerning Martha Beth Lewis, I actually find it hard to sustain the attitude I had set out to share. When I'm saying mean things to people I know, it's easy to know how far I can go. When I'm saying them in person to people I don't know, same thing--you stop when people recoil...or maybe just one more jab and then you stop. Out here, people are kind of thin-skinned. And it's hard to know when I've gone too far. OTOH, I'm not called the Stitch Bitch for nothing: WYSIWYG.

Recently I met people who I didn't know who also read the blog. Suddenly, I was horrified. I had said, things, and there were these people...Reading Them. And here I was talking to them. What had I said that they would remember; had I embarrassed myself? the poor dude? It's completely counterintuitive, but I like you all a whole lot better in the abstract than when you are shaking my hand. (Oh, it was a pleasure to meet you all, btw!)

If you're asking why I use a nom de blog, that's a whole other story.