Here's a question from one of the coolest cross stitchers around (not me): how to make cross stitch cool? How do we get new blood circulating? How do we get big like knitting? How do we help the industry support all the designers we love so well?
The dude thinks we shouldn't go cool. He thinks the best things are the dorky things, but that's because he plays chess in one of the most anti-intellectual countries around (that's us, the U.S.). Other countries celebrate their chess players, other countries show chess on t.v. But here, we can't even set up a chessboard properly. (Well, why, when it's just for show?)
I've been mulling over the question but I have no answers. I just do my part stitching in public and giving all the public service I can--this morning on the El a woman asked me if I didn't need a hoop to do cross stitch. I told her you could work in hand. Her sister is a stitcher. She wanted to make sure I didn't think she was the big dork...or something. Anyway, I thought since I was heading out to stitch publicly--at the baseball tonight--that I should make sure to be a cross-stitcher. I had thought about bringing a knitting project. But it's easy to be a knitter--knitting's cool. So I will stand with the dude in dorkiness and cross stitch tonight. And if I can get this project done in four days, I'll enter it in the stitch n' pitch contest. If you see me tonight, be sure to say hello. I'll be the big dork with the cross-stitch project.
4 comments:
I couldn't make an ice cube look cool, so as long as I continue to schlep my projects around eveywhere I go, I'm adding a definate anti-coolness to the movement.
I'm afraid I'm not really going to be of help to you. I'm a librarian, who wears glasses, who owns two cats, and who does a lot of crafty projects.
I think I'm with the Dude -- why worry about being cool? Worry about keeping cross-stitch in the craft stores and designers in business, yes; coolness, no.
I don't know that anyone not named Hilton should be concerned with coolness just for the sake of coolness, but one advantage to knitting becoming cool is that the range of designs and yarn has grown exponentially. It's nice to have more options than just Red Heart acrylic and afghan patterns. Personally, I'd love to see the same thing happen for xstitch, if only because it wold provide fresher voices in design and a larger variety of materials. I could stand more two dozen more monsterbubbles and if cool is what it takes to get them, then bring me cool.
Oh exactly, how can we make it kewl? Back in February [07] I came accross a blog where stitchers were making key chains, little pins, etc from a freebie pattern -- it says "Je brode ... Et vous? Also graph in English. I have it kitted up someplace & wanted to attach it to my handbag.
I admit, most of the places I go, I have a tabletopper in tow. They are kinda easy to do - with perle #5 on 18ct. The most frequent comment I get, is about making something practical instead of a dust collector.
Enjoy the day!
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