Cool Cross Stitch?

The cross stitch patterns available in your local big box craft store are a wide selection of cutesy, country, and crafty, with a few fairies and wizards thrown in for variety.  The new trend in online patterns seems to be either vulgarities stitched in a classic, homey style, or renditions of video game or other pop culture characters, most of which are blatant copyright infringements.  While that may be the definition of "cool cross stitch" for some, I think there is a generation of stitchers looking for something more, myself included.

The first cross stitch designs that I decided to tackle were alphabets, partly due to my time working in a print shop where I became hyper aware of fonts, and partly because my son was in the process of learning his alphabet, so I sort of had the ABC's on my mind.  I stitched these deco style letters for my son's room, then did three other designs for my nearby nieces and nephew.  I figure that even if I never sell anything, at least I can justify the effort by making gifts for my family.

Setting up a store on Etsy has been time consuming and stressful to say the least.  Every time I list an item, my adolescent insecurities resurface as I wait for the validation of views, hearts and the ever elusive sale.  There are stores selling cross stitch patterns on Etsy who have hundreds, if not thousands of sales, and I can't help but compare myself to them.  I have to keep reminding myself that they have hundreds, if not thousands of listings, whereas I have twelve.

Now that my shop is more or less running, I feel like it is time to play.  I'm exploring ideas that I haven't seen in cross stitch before, like geometric patterns that are more than just quilt block squares, and basic forms that translate to ideas and concepts.  I'm trying to treat each pattern as a hypothesis, a proposed solution rather than a definitive answer.  I know that not everything I produce is going to be good, which is actually quite freeing.

That said, posting on Etsy has made it difficult to resist the urge to whip up a few simple little ditties to please the masses.  With early bird holiday shoppers already hitting the online stores, I'm tempted to sell out and jump on board the cutesy Christmas ornament wagon.  I guess it's good that I don't do cutesy very well.

So I'll keep plugging away, building my collection, learning, and hopefully one of these days I'll achieve my goal of creating some cool cross stitch.

Objects in the rearview mirror...

I remember learning to cross stitch during a road trip in the back seat of my grandparent's station wagon.  I had a green plastic hoop, a strip of aida ribbon, and some pink and red DMC floss.  My grandma Ruth let me use her cool folding scissors to snip the loose threads and helped me to untangle my work when I managed to sew it onto the hoop.  I think I was about seven.

Stitched when I was seven

Since then I have tackled quite a few projects, everything from little Christmas ornaments that were finished in a few hours to a guardian angel picture that took several years to complete.  I have always loved the idea of using a rectilinear grid to create forms that read as curves and swirls.  However, as my taste for design developed, I found fewer and fewer patterns that I liked.

At ten or so I made my first attempt at designing a cross stitch pattern by drawing on graph paper and using each grid as a stitch.  I drew an apple tree in a bright green field and a little girl riding on a rope swing that was tied to one of the branches. There was a rainbow overhead, puffy white clouds in the sky and purple mountains receding into the distance. I was far to ambitious, and I didn't make it very far on my stitching attempt. Plus, I was ten -- what did I know?

So, now that I am older and wiser (I hope), I am once again trying my hand at cross stitch design. I still love rainbows, but I've also learned to love letters, and the way that a font can lend meaning and emotion to the words it is representing.  I love words, for after all, we need words to make us human.  I love the way lines and shapes can interact in a composition, and I love the feelings that an archetypal image can evoke.  I have so many ideas to explore that it is hard to know where to begin.

Well, I guess there's nothing to it but to do it!  To be continued... :)