Julie Jackson has been creating naughty and bawdy cross stitch kits for several years on her web site. She’s now teamed with chronicle books to produce a book
The book has 33 designs with traditionally cute images of bumble bees and birds edged around text like “whatever” and “bite me” (or my personal favorite “babies suck.”) There’s an introduction to cross stitch techniques, blank charts for mapping out your own designs and a page of resources for more information.
What is cool about Julie’s book, I think, is that she began by converting store-bought patterns by adding “subversive” text. She encourages her readers to make their own designs. I love the idea that a pattern is merely a framerwork or guideline for creativity. Stitchers, knitters, crocheters should feel free to make a pattern their own–and even add text like Julie does. Cross stitch is an obvious place to start expressing yourself, since it is so easy to use text, but of course there’s embroidery, intarsia and tapestry crochet.
Have you added text (subversive or otherwise) to your fiber projects? I’d love to see pictures and examples.