Stitched Up News

I don't think I ordered that from my favorite ONS:

The same story with the "not your grandmother's stitching" spin. Hell that's not even my stitching. (And PS you do not know my grandmother.)

Need an idea for your next tat?

Roll out the Doctor.

Celebrity face in cross-stitch. This is the weirdest story: guy cross-stitches Marilyn Monroe piece in honor of the 52nd year of her death. Was he just two years late in thinking of it? And why is the newspaper covering it? There is like one sentence related to the stitching, and the rest of the article is fleshed out with Monroe trivia. Of course, I have now written nearly as many words about the article as the article has. And in clicking through, we will send the wrong message. The Burton Mail will be all, "hot damn! Look at all those hits! Let's run that article about the nun who created the portrait of Cardinal Romero with hot dogs!"

Now that's a picture. Aren't you glad I read the internet for you?

Whovians

I'm not a Dr. Who person myself. When I was in high school, I had a problem with insomnia, and I watched it--in reruns--occasionally on the 12" black and white my parents let me keep in my room. (Can you imagine trying to explain that to a high school kid today?) It was a privilege, and when I got in trouble (which occurred with surprising frequency), the TV had to be given up. (My sister had a small color TV, but that was later, and it was the one we hooked the computer up to.) (Seriously, life has gotten so strange.)

So my experience of Dr. Who was of the original doctor, and I came in late. All the reruns in the world weren't going to help me sort it out. Of course if the original Dr. had been a little more David Tenant, I might have tried a little harder. (This is also the same period that I got into The Prisoner, and my sister and I would watch it on this tiny b&w sitting on the hardwood floor of my bedroom  because it was so crazy and crazy-different from anything we had seen on TV.) (Patrick McGoohan then showed up with incredible regularity on Columbo, one of my favorite shows.)

At any rate, Dr. Who is 50. And someone scoured the internet and brought together 10 Cross-stitch projects with which to celebrate. My favorite comment is about this Tenth Doctor pattern by BabyMish, "The finished design measures 4 inches wide by 7 inches high when worked on 14-count Aida fabric, so it shouldn’t take you too long to complete." Yeah, except the part where there are a million stitches because it is 28 square inches of solid stitching! I guess it all depends on the definition of "too long." Enjoy! 

It's...What?...I DON'T KNOW!

In another installment of you don't have to be a journalist to write for the internet, HuffPo has shown off a cross-stitch needlepoint.

Photo by BriocheBun

Oh, for crissake's, people. Even Wikipedia gets it right. All of the stuff is called embroidery--although there is also something called surface embroidery which is specific rather than general. But cross-stitch, needlepoint, blackwork, and crewel (among others) are all embroidery. But you don't have to say "cross-stitch embroidery" or "blackwork embroidery" unless you know nothing at all about needlework and you want to make sure that granny stuff doesn't rub off on you. It's all done with threads, a needle with an eye, and ground fabric. The ground fabric and the threads are what distinguishes each type.

Fortunately, someone gave a sassy answer in the comments so I didn't have to heave my shoulders and sigh while rolling my eyes and writing another sarcastic response to people who don't know anything about a subject writing about it without doing any research.

The fact that this is a celebrity face in cross-stitch only serves to rub salt in the wound.

God Save The...

I got an email from Keepsake Needlearts, advertising the Diamond Jubilee. They have a page or so of "British" patterns and things for the Anglophile needleworker. 

Me: "Hey, dude, I'm going to stitch you this."

Dude*: "You just the hell better not."

I'm kinda glad he said that because you know how I feel about the celebrity face in cross-stitch. But I'm also the kind of person who doesn't understand hanging a picture of the queen or the president or the pope in your house. I mean, it's not like you're related. (Anyway, I'm sure that some people have very good and patriotic or religious reasons for doing so.) (I am still allowed to be all freaked out when I go into someone's house and have to walk by the Pope on my way to the bathroom.)

*Some newcomers may not be aware, but the dude is a transplanted Brit.

Soccer Football

Things went well in the US vs England match, so I can bring you this news:

Just in time for the World Cup, the Guardian brings us Wayne Rooney's "massive face" in cross-stitch. (You've got to read the accompanying copy; it's a little tongue in cheek.)

Of course if you can get your hands on Issue 202 of the Cross Stitcher (UK) Magazine, you can stitch yourself a Cristiano Ronaldo. Frankly, that makes much more sense.

You decide.

SBQ: Daddy

This month's SBQ, focuses on dear old dad.

Tell us about something that you have stitched or plan to stitch for any father in your life. Maybe it’s for your father, your father-in-law, your children’s father, your grandfather, your godfather, or someone who was or still is an important father-figure in your life. Why did you choose this particular piece of stitching? Tell us the story behind it.

Often times we identify our love of needlework and our skills with our mothers or grandmothers or other women. It’s understandable because often they were are first teachers or role models. Now let’s think about our stitching life as it relates to our dads. Is there anything about our approach to stitching that we can recognize as traits of our fathers? For instance, does your dad (or any other important man in your life) have an approach to one of his interests that you can observe and think, “Hey….if I substitute the word “needlework” for “fly fishing”, we’d be pretty darn similar!” So tell us about it. (That's me and dad in Canada in the 70s.)

The first thing I ever stitched for my dad was this Sue Hillis design of our home state. You may notice the little green bottles at Nashua and Keene. My dad was a beer wholesaler and his warehouses were located there. Clever, huh? This may have been my first major pattern alteration because I had only been stitching for two years when I did this.

I also made Dimples Design's Legends of the Silver Screen, Marilyn Monroe. It's just her eyes, and I did it because my father is a huge fan of Marilyn Monroe. He has a lot of photos and paintings featuring her. I gave it to him at Christmas, and he had no idea who it was. All of Nolan's eyes are completely recognizable.

When I was growing up, my dad's catch phrase was "No sweat." I think that I approach cross stitch that way, nothing is too difficult or complicated to take on. He also used to (may still, not sure) reload his own ammunition. And I think in a lot of ways that is like cross-stitch in that it is also an exacting but repetitious endeavor.

Here we are up at L.L. Bean's fly fishing school, speaking of fly fishing. We learned to tie flies up there, which is a similar craft.

Around the Webosphere

Things happening. Time eaten. Snow falling. Talk amongst yourselves. Here are some topics.

• More in counter cross-stitch. I salute the attempt to deconstruct the sexism, but leave the cross stitch out of it unless you want to look like a bozo. It's counted. We count. We don't counter anything. I don't leave my stitching on the counter. Is that so counter-intuitive?
  

• Another Pearl dies. I am especially pleased to see another crafter dedicated to celebrity face in cross-stitch:

  Pearl, where I bought the stuffing for my giant squid. Pearl, where you can get castable silicon for making those orange Gaultier suspenders Leeloo wore in the Fifth Element for Halloween. Pearl, where I could usually find the colors of embroidery floss necessary for the skin tones in the cross-stitch I made of Ice Cube's face. Oh, Pearl, I mourn you. (emphasis added)

• For the Project Runway Fans, a "Make it Work" pattern

• Frankly, no one really wanted Elvis to live to be 75. But you can remember his younger days in cross stitch, from his military service to "Gold" Elvis to a Graceland Sampler. The latter includes my favorite piece of Elvis cheese, the TCB lightning bolt emblem (Taking Care of Business in a Flash, his personal motto. Which cracks me up still.)

• Sorry I don't have the story that goes with this one (from the Global Post Blog). The link is broken. But somewhere in Asia, cross-stitching facemasks (to protect oneself from H1N1) is a "booming industry." See, the Asians really will save us cross-stitchers (remember the Chinese weightlifting team?)

• The Brits are done with instant gratification. Cross stitch, thriving.

• World's Largest Cross Stitch. Twenty folk artists working "over 200 days." Yeah, twenty four hour days. Be sure to watch the video so you can get the scale.

• Doing Cross-stitch: it's how you can tell you are getting old. Add it to the old lady count. (Frankly, I've lost count.)
  

Nessun dorma!

I've been trying to think what made me so cranky about my last post, and today, I think I got it while I was listening to NPR. Marty Moss-Coane of Radio Times spoke with Jonathan Safran Foer about his new book, Eating Animals. He read a bit from it where his grandmother was discussing how she survived the Holocaust--eating garbage, eating worse than garbage that she wouldn't talk about, and getting scarce resources from others and trading for something better to eat. Finally, towards the end of the war, a Russian farmer gave her a large piece of meat. "He saved your life," her grandson says. "I didn't eat it," "You didn't eat it?" "It was pork." ..."Not even to save your life?" "If nothing matters, there's nothing to save." Foer's point is that we use our values to draw a line in the sand.

And I guess that's what's so problematic to me about some of the responses I've gotten. I tell you my values and you tell me why they can't be yours. Perhaps I just don't find that helpful.

So enough with the heavy stuff... The Stitchery arrived before I drove up to NH and I threw it in my stitching bag. A couple of things made me turn down the pages to share the utter weirdness with you.

Still more celebrity face in cross-stitch!

For some reason, I think this is even weirder than bad translations of Robert Pattinson's face--and those of other contemporary pop figures-- in cross stitch. I just can't put my finger on it. I'll chew that cud and see what I regurgitate. More tomorrow.

Newsworthy

It's only day three. I can't really be falling back on the google alerts already, can I?

No, I need to run out and get my haircut as soon as this post is up. How did it come to pass that the time has already arrived? The first car is dead (again) (I told that mechanic that if I had to come back with a dead battery that I would be very angry, and yet...). Fortunately, we kept the second car because SEPTA is out on strike and the poor dude was stranded about 30 blocks shy of his office this morning (where the suburban vehicles become city vehicles). And he only thought of getting a cab after someone else arrived at work in a hired car. So, all those other things I meant to get done today before I went out to the hair dresser? A little bit undone. But I did vote.

Phew. Thank you for all the kind words about the pooch and the "cleaner" craft room. I wonder what other treasures lie buried in there. (Because I'm a long way from done.) I doubt it will be hand addressed envelopes that I unearth next. (Coni, I use labels. And a xeroxed holiday letter.)

Here's what the innernets has for us:

• For people of a certain age.I like this, and you may recall that I recently bought some things from chez sucre chez. But how tired tired tired am I about the idea that cross-stitch is always twee? Yes, if you go to Michaels, Joanns, and Hobby Lobby, you’re going to see twee things. There’s more to the stitching life! Get your ass in a cross-stitch store.
• Celebrity face in cross-stitch, # 324 in a series. What is it that drives grown women to cross-stitch a strange man’s face? (By which I mean the face of a man she’s not related to. I mean, is the celebrity crush about to offer sex in exchange for hundreds if not thousands of hours of cross-stitching?) (Though I kind of mean—eek!—look at Engelbert Humperdink’s face.)
• More celebrity yadda yadda. Does it even look like Robert Pattinson?
• More evidence that boys get all the attention.

Oh, bama!

How did I miss this? You rascally Brits, keeping this one to yourselves!*

Good thing Google Alerts told me that someone at the Guardian wanted to let us all know that cross-stitch might still be relevant.

I thought that this was a telling remark: "As cross stitch is the art of saying something in a matter of stitches..." I think that's what kills us. People think that cross-stitching is just about putting aphorisms on the wall**. Cross-stitch is seen as the maiden aunt giving unsolicited advice. No wonder we get the old lady reputation. People, we need to tell them it's so much more than that!

I am making great progress on my stockings but the weather is not cooperating for photos. I had to turn the lights on in the house at 1:30 today. Isn't the sun supposed to be on by then?

* Someone had asked whether the Guardian was violating copyright, but I'm pretty sure that they must have a deal with the Cross-stitcher. All sorts of newspapers are finding ways to share copy. I open up the Philadelphia Inquirer to read stories originally written for the Washington Post and Contra Costa Times; the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. No one can afford writers any more.

**I once had a boss, silly girl but otherwise terrific boss, who thought her family invented cliches. She would always say, "as my mother-in-law says, a place for everything and everything in its place" or "as my husband says, you can't teach an old dog new tricks." I'm not kidding. Whenever we talked about stitching (she knit and quilted) she would always tell me how she cross-stitched "a place for everything and everything in its place"--as her mother-in-law always says--to remind her husband to put things away. Really. Gross.

Celebrity Face in Cross-Stitch The Harry Potter Edition

Sweet! Daniel Radcliffe as imagined by our friends at the Cross-Stitcher. They do not let me down, people. (Still where's the Morrissey?)

Goodness Gracious

I don't even have words. Thanks to CinDC who fuels my obsession with celebrity face in cross stitch.

Rookies

Let me begin by saying I admire what this woman did. Creating a pattern, even with Photoshop, coming up with the idea, executing a one-over-one project--it all takes creativity. And I admire that. And I completely identify with misunderestimating the time a project will take.

But both the craftzine report of this stitched piece--which, incidentally falls into my favorite category: celebrity faces in cross stitch--and the woman's blog are, shall we say, adorable in their naivete.

I don't want this post to be discouraging to beginner stitchers, or people whose secondary or even tertiary craft is cross-stitch. But I do think it's funny the awe with which the craftzine writer says the piece was stitched with single strands of floss. I'm guessing most loyal readers, nope ALL loyal readers have done a one-over-one project. (Okay 92.38% of you.) I also like how the stitcher wasn't sure she could find six discrete grays. (Too bad she didn't have access to a DMC color family chart. pdf) And I like how she calls 28 hpi "finest resolution"--it's not that that's not the finest, it's using the term "resolution" to describe fabric count.

For these are the people reviving our craft...

Please, Grandma, No!

From the celebrity faces in cross-stitch file, country style!

A fan of country music in general, Connie Adkins, of Croton, spent two weeks working on a detailed cross-stitched portrait of Lawrence, which she brought with her to the concert. An acquaintance who had a meet-and-greet ticket took Adkins' handiwork to Lawrence to sign.

Adkins was thrilled. She said she plans to do a series of cross-stitch portraits of "old timers of the Grand Ole Opry" to have autographed and give to her three granddaughters.

I don't know what makes me cringe the most. {Insert smart ass remark here.}

For Coral

Regarding the celebrity face in cross stitch, Coral said she might stitch someone famous, like Marilyn Monroe. Which reminds me...

Given how regularly I make fun of the B-list celebrity face in cross stitch, I probably should be embarrassed to show you this. But I'm not. Because it's not a face. Not a whole face. The pattern is by Dimples Designs. It's Marilyn Monroe, but my dad, a huge fan for whom I stitched this, didn't recognize her. But he did appreciate how many tiny exes there are; it's stitched over one on 22 count fabric with the called for DMC.

And I think David Tennant's mum getting a cross stitch of his face from one of her friends is brill...I might have to rent the DVD!

More Celebrities in Ex

More news of stitchers who cross-stitch celebrity faces. This time she's in Wisconsin, and she loves her some Johnny Depp (she's the only one).

Because I love the crazy of stitching celebrity faces, I went to my favorite British mag, Cross Stitch Crazy, purveyor of stitched celebrity face, to see who the Brits are stitching this month: Freddie Mercury. For some reason, I've been drawn to the back issues: April Gethin Jenkins, a Welsh Rugby player; April Daniel O'Donnell, an Irish singer; in Feb "the smouldering Scottish star"--who can it be? Issues 107 and 108 sold out, but in issue 106 (November) Lewis Hamilton, F1 driver (and I'm restraining myself from a dig at NASCAR). I couldn't stop exploring the website, and I found the woman responsible for the celebrities. Now that you have this knowledge, use it wisely.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

News of the Weird and Wonderful

I have gmail set up to send me news stories about cross-stitch as they hit the web. Mostly, I get announcements about "stitch and bitch" sessions and craft fairs (sadly none in my area) or obituaries where the dead woman will be remembered for her love of cross-stitch. Recently, they sent me a link to this story about Jang Dong Gun's visit to Singapore (that's him in the Korean movie, The Brotherhood of War).

"Meanwhile, one of his fans, Miss Jennifer Chan, 39, has prepared her own memento for her idol - a cross-stitch piece of his handsome face.

The administrative manager said she spent more than three months on the handicraft which she's mounted on a photo album.

'He can afford to buy anything he wants, so I'd rather make something special for him. It comes from my heart, and it carries my good wishes,' said Miss Chen."

I know I have commented before on how weird I think it is to cross-stitch celebrity faces, but there's something heartwarming about this story, sweet even.