Cross-Stitch Art

Submission 11,629

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About

Cross-Stitch is a type of simple embroidery where an image or pattern is created by sewing a series of X-shaped stitches in rasterized or pixel-type pattern. Cross-stitching can be done on fabric or plastic, and detailed patterns can be stamped or drawn on the material in order to generate the exact form. Online, users enjoy creating cross stitch fan art, and a community has formed for sharing these online, mostly on Tumblr. Similar fan art is sometimes created by other craft methods, like knitting or crochet.

Origin

Cross-stitching is the oldest form of embroidery in the world, and has often been used to illustrate contemporary events through history.^[1] In modern times, software has become available to assist in creating cross-stitch patterns out of every day images; there are several such programs, some of which are free and open source, like C-Stitch.^[2] With a pattern, cross stitching is extremely simple, which has led to its enduring popularity. In recent years, the Maker and Crafting movements have led to a resurgence in the popularity of cross stitch, especially for funny and unique purposes.^[3]

C-Stitch Demo Image

Spread

Like much other fan art, the main communities for cross stitch are Tumblr, Reddit, and DeviantArt. On Tumblr, there are many blogs devoted to cross stitch fan art, including xstitchnerdism, random-fandoms-xstitch, backstagestitches, and 8bitcrossstitch] Reddit has a cross stitch subreddit; however, it is mostly devoted to the technicalities of the craft.^[5] Many of the most popular cross stitch fan art is either posted in the forum for the subculture it depicts or posted in more popular general forums like /r/funny or /r/pics, where over 50 examples of cross stitch fan art have received more than 1,000 upvotes.^[6] On DeviantArt, there are more than 31,000 examples of cross stitch fan art, both humorous and serious.^[7]