So what, pray tell, have I been doing with my time – I have
become a cross-stitching fiend!
Finishing off projects that have been set aside for years, buying more projects than I can ever hope to complete, and even reading(!) a
bit about the craft.
“Domestic arts were equated with virtue because they
insured the woman remain at home and refrain from book learning.” Ha Ha – I can’t even…
The Subversive Stitch
I am not going to pretend like I read this whole thing. It is basically a PhD thesis on embroidery
and feminism and if I can’t get my mind to focus on a Gabriel adventure then I
sure as hell can’t get into this.
But the bits and pieces I did get through were interesting: How stitching was considered a hobby of
the rich and well mannered, and then became a kind of trade for the lower
class; then the push back against the idea that the “craft” is for the idle or
pious woman, or as I hear a lot “women’s work.” How the designs have changed
from a young woman’s “casket” of work to show off to possible suitors, to the
more modern subversive designs that try to break down barriers. Speaking of…
The project I am working on now is from a book called
Twisted Stitches. I was originally
drawn to it because it is written by a man who very unapologetically thanks a
family friend for teaching him to stitch but also laments the fact that each
finished piece is sent to live out its days in the bottom of a drawer somewhere
like many of my past projects. I
love the Sugar Skull pattern but admit that the gun shot wounds, road kill, and
voluptuous female vampire patterns lost my attention. I have to think there is a way to be off the beaten track
without beating that track to a pulp with your irreverence. If only I was creative enough to come
up with my own designs.
