What do cross-stitch and Michelangelo have in common?

Thank you for all the comments about thread painting! Just another wonderful layer to embroidery. The winner for the thread painting book The Magic Garden is KBO! Please email your mailing address to [email protected] and we’ll get this right out to you.  For today’s Wednesday Giveaway it is Two-Hour Cross-Stitch by Trice Boerens. This book is great with 300 quick & easy designs that you can do in between machine embroidery projects or quilting projects.  Perfect for those who love to create any time anywhere!

Cross-stitch for those that are unfamiliar with it is form of hand embroidery where x-shaped stitches are used to form the designs. Cross-stitch is an old form of embroidery and can be seen in many museum collections and is still widely practiced in places like the Ukraine, southern Europe and the middle east.  In the United Kingdom and the US there is a resurgence in the art of cross stitching and one can find many updated cross stitch patterns and designs from the sassy, cheeky and even X-rated.  Cross-stitch is a form of embroidery that is perfect for beginners who want to start some form of hand embroidery. The stitches are very basic and easy to learn, even small children can pick up cross stitch.

Of course once you master the basic stitches a cross-stitcher is only limited by their imagination. Here is Joann Lopianowski-Roberts who is world renowned for her cross stitch creations. The Sistine Chapel seen below took her 10 years or 2872 hours to create! Amazing. Here is a short article on her work from PRWeb.

And, here is a detail shot

Images from –  http://creativityjourney.blogspot.com/2010/08/sistine-chapel-in-cross-stitch.html

To learn more about Joanna Lopianowski-Roberts you can purchase her book HERE.

If you would like to do your own tiny version of a masterpiece then please answer the question below and you will be entered to win the book Two-Hour Cross-Stitch by Trice Boerens!

Do you cross-stitch!? Simple enough. If you do what do you like to stitch and if you don’t why do you want to learn? Is it to relax or just to get back to something simple? Do tell?