Media Relations

My inbox was full, full, of random articles from my Google aggregator. I bring them to you in no particular order:

• Stitching and mindfulness. 
• Stitching as therapy  (I know the second photo is a Lizzie*Kate design, but if you know the other two designers, especially the first one, please identify in the comments.)
• Racism and a little ageism meet embroidery (Why don’t you just embroider them? The quotes sound like something my grandmother would say,’”)
• Who even knew Torontonians was the demonym? Toronto skyline charted.
• Not to be outdone, the Winnepeggers (seriously Canada, you crack me up!) help create a piece on the Scottish diaspora 
• Snarkilily got some coverage in January (And Albertans. 
• Someone's rescuing those abandoned cross-stitches, and you can too. 
• The sounds of cross-stitch (Hungarian embroidery to be precise) 
• The Summer I Learned to Sew (not me, the author) takes pot shots at cross-stitch, sewing and crafters generally. Harumph.
• I've featured stories on craftivism before, but here's an interesting interview with the founder, Sarah Corbett: "The craft I focus on using is mostly hand embroidery and cross-stitch—handicrafts that require you to slow down and do gentle repetitive actions that help you to think deeply and critically about the global issue you care about."

And, full circle.

Oh, You Noticed

The dude and I recently saw Hello, My Name is Doris. In the movie, Sally Field's Doris is swanning for a much younger man and, in hanging around with him, her "vintage" becomes hip. In the hands of a lesser actress, Doris could have been completely ridiculous. But Field makes Doris charming and compelling.

I've been meaning to respond to Sanya Burgess's Sunday (London) Times article "I'll be Darned - Sewing's Trendy." Which demonstrates how the old lady craft, taken up by the hipsters brings cross-stitch from the ridiculous ("grannies and kittens and puppies!") to the hip (twenty year olds cross-stitch in bars!). 

I just wish these journalists had the sympathy of a Sally Field so they could elevate their articles. Instead of relying on the old granny foil, how about really understanding what you're talking about? If you're looking for patterns beyond the puppies and kittens, how about going to a dedicated cross-stitch store rather than a big box craft store? And I'm not talking about Sew and So. I just went there because they are specifically mentioned in the article since 300,000 of their visitors (they don't tell you how many total visits) are between 18-34. Big.Box.Craft.Store. (Which have their place! But don't tell me you don't like their stock therefore cross-stitch is for old ladies.)

The other evidence they give for young people getting into "needlecraft" is that they are "beating their grandmothers to the best sewing machines and cross-stitch sets." The sewing machines are in bright colors, which apparently attract young people. (Ooh, shiny.)

Let's invent a cross-stitch where there's space for everyone.

Come Back?

If you are inclined, you can download this one here.

You know how I enjoy the ironies of cross stitch--the old lady craft being undertaken by young people. The stories that show how the super-feminine craft is being used in ways not usually associated with femininity (porn, protest, feminist messaging). The highly educated woman taking up cross-stitch which was once the limit of a girl's education.

The candidate who famously decided not to "stay home and bake cookies" has a cross-stitch pattern available on her website. The Atlantic covered it recently. But instead of enjoying the ironies, they've decided that cross-stitch is making a comeback. Fine by me.

Old Sad Boring Ladies with Nothing but Time

It's a long weekend in America, so I know you'll need some extra reading.

Instagram/Eva Krbdk

Tattoos "grandma might actually approve of"...(Never mind the grammar, there's gramma!) I've lost count, in the past nearly twelve years, of how many times we've been likened to grandmothers. But the tattoos are cool.

More old ladies, lesbian old ladies even. Includes an interview with Julie Jackson that says she doesn't know what traditional cross-stitchers think of her patterns because she  doesn't "run in those circles." Well, really, why not? We're quite amusing, you know.

Guy cross-stitches new debit card in less time it takes his bank to send him a replacement.

Boys Boys Boys

You know how I'm always complaining that men get so much attention for doing "women's work?"

Brief review for those who answered no:

• How come when men do it it's news?
• Man handled
• Review of Free Range Knitter
• Will I get a Show When I Top 500
• Football Player and Crocheter
• Or Something Like That

New York Magazine hates that too. (The video is kind of awesome, but you should read the article.)

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! 

Around the Interwebs

* Alice Munro—a fabulous short story writer from Canada—won the Nobel Prize a few weeks  ago. Someone stitched her face, of course!

* Women’s voting in the last election represented in feminine craft at Jezebel, so it must be feminist:

* More awkward reporting about cross-stitch, “In counted cross-stitch, the artist copies a pattern freehand, creating a design with X-shaped stitches on clean, unmarked fabric,” and awe that a man did it. 

* Meant to give you a head’s up on summer reading: 

* And Christmas crafting…

* Embroidery Traditions are Thriving in Central China

Fortunately, young Chinese girls don’t need to have embroidery skills to find a husband any more. But the backward folk in Central China still do it:

Hunan Provence
Ethnic peoples, such as the Tujia, the Miao, the Dong and the Yao, have dwelled in the west and south of Hunan for many generations. They have created several renowned textile crafts that are regarded as treasures of traditional Chinese culture.
 For instance, there is a branch of the Yao ethnic group called Huayao - or "Flowery Yao" -because they are known for their special and colorful clothes as well as outstanding cross-stitch embroidery.
 The women always carry their needles and embroidery work with them so that they can make cross-stitch whenever they have time.

And even in China, you can’t escape the “country” patterns:

“Images of flowers, Mandarin ducks, golden sunsets, and rainbows transform plain cloth into something extraordinary.” (That joke would work better if it were Mandarin geese.)

Unsurprisingly the article laments the kids today who won’t learn embroidery and begs people to take it up.

Get a Load of that Dame!

Faithful reader Kristen, sent along this delightful bit. It's about celebrity stitching. Hell it's about Dame Judi Dench. She's a cross-stitcher. I knew I loved her. But wait, it gets better:

But perhaps the most arresting memory that they take away from being on set with living legend Judi Dench is not her boundless fascination with acting but her penchant for subversive needlework. Her work certainly did not resemble the delicately stitched roses of a Mrs. Bennet. "She makes these like needlework embroideries on set in the tedium of filming", says (Matthew) MacFadyen, "but they are all: 'You Are a Cunt*'. And she gives them as presents. And it's Dame Judi Dench. And she is doing this beautifully, intricate, ornate (work). You kind of see the work materializing as the shoot goes on. Like: 'You Are a Fucking Shit.' Knightley never received her embroidered cushion from Dench but remarks: "I love that! She gives this fantastic air. She just sits there and she embroiders and you think: 'Oh, that's so nice! It's Judi Dench. It's so quaint; she's embroidering a cushion,' and you go: 'What are you embroidering?' And (it says): 'Fuck!' Apparently she's got hundreds of them just covered in swear words or rude sayings."

Kristen sent this to me from the Groupthink blog which links to the longer article that was in Premier Magazine in 2005.

Love that dame!

*This is different-ish in British than in American. It’s offensive in both languages (just ask me about the time I was explaining the difference to one of the dude’s friend’s parents!) but it is reserved for women in American in a way it is not in British. It’s also a little less horrible in British.

She Stitches Zombies

"We've seen enough geeky cross-stitch projects to know that this craft has moved far beyond alphabets and 'Bless this mess' signs."

Translation: Thank god hipsters came along and rescued cross-stitch from the old ladies who we continue to mischaracterize.

A friend of mine posted this link on facebook from io9 ("a daily publication that covers science, science fiction, and the future"). While I could do without the sentiment, it is a pretty amazing stitched piece by Cross Stitch Ninja who posted on the Sprite Stitch forum. It is a page from the Walking Dead comic. I'm glad it's getting all this attention, but gah, enough with the "cross-stitch is really twee" trope. I've had it.

Man Handled

Oh, media, I love you and your search to make sense of our weird and wonderful world. First, there's this guy in England who's been knitting a tube since the late 80s. I shit you not.

So, what exactly do you do with 17 miles of i-cord? And frankly, has the "i" in i-cord ever been more apt? Actually it's spool knitting, which is apparently known as "French knitting" in England. (Always blaming the French...) All joking aside, he is one of us: "I just sit and watch the telly and do the knitting , it comes naturally to me and I find it calms me down" (emphasis added).

This Boston Globe article {via Craft Gossip} focuses on boys doing girl stuff, like cooking and reading in groups and knitting. Oh, my!

Don't worry, an expert on gender roles has told them, "Since men are marrying later, they tend to like hobbies and organizations that either include women or have the potential to lead them to women." So it's still about sex. Phew. I was worried there for a moment. (Seriously, you called a professor of mass communications? You couldn't talk to a real gender studies professor?)

"There is another reason men are turning to traditions previously seen as more feminine. They don’t care about that stigma, especially men who have already settled down into family life*." You think? And I'm pretty sure the gender studies professor would have given you a better quote about that than some market researcher.

*In some ways I think this is supposed to be code for "they're not gay." Thank heavens that is changing. 

 Soon, "family" won't be code for anything. Oh, happy day. See also this quote, "All men. All married." Funnily enough, there are complaints in the comments about the Globe's "gay agenda." Whatever you do, whatever you do, do not read the comments. 

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.

More Boobs

Thanks for your rather thoughtful responses to the p-o-r-n. If, as Miss Quoted suggests, porn is just too "done" to be surprising--maybe all the subversive sayings are too--what is the new shocking thing that will raise cross-stitch to an art? We thought maybe violence. But what do you say?

Can you tell I haven't been stitching? More media: Remember that artist who cross-stitched the Vogue covers? Inge Jacobsen has been hired by a jewelry company to stitch images from the catalog. Some of them are really weird, and the model looks like she stuck her head into one of those cut outs at the fair. Only instead of making her look like she's really fat or in an odd situation, she looks like she's been cross-stitched. But not her face. Or the jewelry. Cross-stitched jewelry, how are they supposed to sell that?

The artist was assisted by the Royal School of Needlework, "who helped create the Duchess of Cambridge's Alexander McQueen wedding dress." I'm pretty sure that until Kate M. makes a real boner, the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court is going to be forever associated with that dress. No matter how many other projects they work on. It's how we're making needlework relevant for the masses.

Am I too cranky for this blog?

Young People Reviving Old School Crafts

I love the media. Those people are so funny and so...clueless. Here's what they say about cross-stitch now.

"The age-old hobby using a needle and thread is having a shock revival as hundreds of young people flock to bars to take part in 'urban' cross stitch.

"Shock" revival. I love that. Because it's only happening if you see it happen. No one does it at home behind closed doors or anything...and never in the rural areas. What happens in cities is what's important. (Actually it is to us.*) And, only when the youngsters have a go.

But I am perplexed about the bars thing. Are they drinking and stitching? Because that doesn't usually go well.

* Over 80% of Americans live in urban areas and 90% of economic output happens there.

Murders and Executions

Shay Pendray's Needle Arts Studio has been acquired by Interweave Press the company that brings you PieceWork and Interweave Knits. Ms. Pendray will continue as host through 2007, and will be involved with the show until 2011 on and off the air.

So, um, wake me in 2012?

I think I've seen the show once, and it was on needlepoint. I seem to remember it was like watching paint dry which is unfortunate for both PBS and needlework.

In other news, last Saturday at the hairdresser, I sat stitching as usual while I waited for the dye to take. The salon owner, Nicholas Sebastian, who is not as gay as that sounds--in fact, he's not gay trust me--comes over to me and says, "Needlepoint is getting hugely popular. You're not the only one I see doing it in here anymore." Since I've only been going there for just a shade less than a year, this "anymore" takes on a new dimension. At least he's used it with the negative--using anymore with a positive spin is one of the most perplexing regionalisms in the English language. Lots of people do it. And it still confuses me.

Crochet Boise Beanies

Today's College Game Day featured a profile of Ian Johnson (pictured left), a tailback from Boise State who's one helluva crocheter. Seriously. He wanted a hat one winter, so his mother taught him to crochet. In high school he made as much as $600 selling his crocheted goods. When he first started college, he couldn't give them away (he was selling them at $15 a pop); now that he's scoring 13 points a game, he's got a backlog of 100 orders (still only $15).

You know I tend to complain when guys get attention for doing crafts that women do all the time--no one's written an article about me learning to shoot and fish before I could ride a bike, have they?--but this guy's got a real charm about him (you wouldn't figure from the photo, but you could see it on the teevee).

Now I want a beanie.

Will I Get a Show When I Top 500?

A New Windsor man had a show which gathered all of his cross-stitch pieces--500 of them--for a show in his hometown. Once he hit 500 he wanted to see them all together. I just have the feeling though, if some crazy broad went over number 500 and wanted to hang them all up in the local Y, the local newspaper wouldn't have thought it newsworthy. Well, if I wanted to have my 500 projects covered in the paper, I imagine I would have to move to a tiny little town.

What I liked about this guy was how he put a mini-journal on the back of all his pieces. Reminding himself what was going on in the world and with the weather--are all old people obsessed with the weather? I ask because my grandmother always asks about the weather and gives me a dissertation on hers whenever we talk on the phone. You can imagine how boring this was when I lived in Los Angeles. At any rate, he must be a one-at-a-timer because he can do that. I mean how would I write a message about the ten years I've spent on Toy Gatherer, to name one? It's an idea, though. And I put it out there for you.