X-Stitch Xpress!

I had a wonderful time with the stitching demo yesterday. What I missed most was having a minion... er, I mean helper, of course! -- to take pics of folks at the table as we were talking because there was a huge amount of interest!

Here are a few photos of the table.

I decided to work on my little sun/moon biscornu piece,  since it was ready to go and easy to stitch around multiple distractions. I completed the cross stitching on the second one and started the backstitching while sitting there.

Here's a picture of the motifs I created for this -- all done in  KXStitch for those of you who have Linux as your OS -- as a way to get folks to try out the hobby, even in a small way.I provided little squares of 14ct Aida cloth and variegated flosses and needles -- all they had to do was pick what they liked and get about five minutes' worth of instruction, and voila! Instant new stitchers!

The highlights of the day were the two little girls who picked up a couple of my little kits and tried cross stitch for the first time. No surprise they couldn't really concentrate on it  given the nearly infinite amount of distractions available, but they did get the basic technique anyway before I sent them off (with promises to return those needles to their mother every time they were done stitching) to enjoy the rest of the fair.

I also got to talk with some women and one man who have done needlework in the past. Most of them walked off with at least my business card if not fliers and little mini-kits too -- I'll do anything I can do to get folks back to the hobby, so long as it's legal and not going to get me blacklisted!

I did get to Twitter (@xxstitcher) and Facebook (Alesia Matson) some too, mindful that I was there to demo stitching, not texting.   It was a highly enjoyable afternoon and I'm looking forward to going back on Tuesday August 18th. Look for another post from me then!