Sigh, a new description of the age-old accusation that cross stitch went from country geese to seriously hip overnight:
Cross-stitch spent many years languishing in some sort of design wasteland populated almost entirely by teddy bears, hearts and freakish, faceless kids wearing hats and holding hands* (or what pass for hands but really look more like stumps). Then, all of a sudden, cross-stitch ditched the teddies and got itself some serious 'tude. "Cross Stitch Therapy"
I'm not blaming the designer, Stitchology, but let's shoot the journalist.
6 comments:
Oh, I think that I stitched something out of that book. It was a pillow that said "Some Bunnies Sleeping". I made it for my son's door. I still have all those books - pack rat that I am.
I agree, it wasn't all of a sudden that better things turned up. I think they were there, but you had to go someplace besides Lee Wards, and some of the other big box places to find them.
I have a sampler stitched by my Mum for the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977 which features several of her castles and houses. (The Queen's, not my Mum's!) There is not a teddy in sight.
I remember a mail order catalogue from the 70's which featured the most wonderful silhouettes in cross stitch, like the old fashioned paper cut portraits in profile?
I started stitching in 1993 with some mini samplers and a Chinese Dragon, then I discovered Teresa Wentzler. Rarely stitch teddies except for babies and I have honestly never stitched a child with a hat (with or without their face!).
Gotta love those stereotypes!
Let's face it. There are still a good amount of geese, ducks, teddie bears and the like out there when one looks at cross stitch kits; particularly 'kits' and many places where cross stitch supplies and designs are sold. Does make it bad, but does make it frustrating when one wants to do a project that is a little more up-to-date.
What a wonderous variety of projects we can choose from! There is a place for the cutesy stuff... check out Love Quilts for instance, a charity that makes quilts for sick children pieced together from cross stitched squares. Plenty of teddies and ballerinas etc there. Profanity or a cheeky saying doesn't necessarily make a chart cool. Depends on your taste. I hate being pigeon holed.
Echoing GrannySue: if the only cross stitch someone sees is in places like Wal-Mart and Michaels, it's not surprising that they think it's old-fashioned. Dimensions and Leisure Arts stuff does tend to be on the twee side. We need to drag these folks into a REAL needlework store.
I totally agree. I haven't stitched the very pixelated-looking teddies from my book by Dale Burdett since the 80s. We've come a long way, baby, but it was LONG before Julie Jackson and her NZ counterpart came along. Sheesh!
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