I am not sure what I think about this NY Times piece from 2006.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/11/fashion/thursdaystyles/11CRITIC.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Needlepoint is easy? Well, I guess it can be, but the author's obviously never met Tony Minieri!
You don't see Martha Stewart or Julia Roberts carrying NP supplies? Julia needlepoints (although she is better known for her knitting) and Martha Stewart used to publish needlepoint pillow charts in her Martha Stewart Living magazine. I haven't read it in years, though, and her website doesn't have any needlepoint on it.
Needlepoint will never hit Hollywood? Obviously the author never heard of all those Jean Smith pillows that were cut from The Big Wedding! The author doesn't know about all those movie stars who needlepoint to keep busy while sitting around waiting for their next scene.
http://needlepointstudyhall.blogspot.com/2011/08/jean-smith-designs-and-movies.html
An intricate 12 foot square canvas can cost $150?!! You can buy machine made needlepoint rugs for $150?! Ok, this was written in 2006 and the author has not read this--
http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com/2013/10/jenny-is-discouraged.html
...but a project that cost $150 plus $100 for threads would not be considered really expensive today.
Although the article purports to be about how the author likes needlepoint, I don't get that sense. Maybe she likes it in spite of herself thinking it is just for dumb dowdy hicks with no taste or style and more money than sense? Needlepoint isn't cool?
Who cares? (Except for the NY Times.)
I think I'm starting to get a headache....
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
@ Copyright 2014 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.
8 comments:
She needs to get out more, broaden her horizons, and be a bit more open minded! LOL
I think she likes npt, but maybe does not want to!
I don't know what is going on with this article. I am pretty sure that the cool kids think NP is for old ladies but then I never hang out with cool kids! They are so full of themselves....
I think the author is a condescending idjit. May her threads tangle hopelessly & her needle leave rust marks. UGH!!!
BTW...I hang out with quite a few cool kids & they love to watch me work on my NP. My very cool GS is 9 today & has been stitching for almost 2 yrs.
I don't doubt for a second that your grandkids are cool. After all, they have YOU as a role model!
I can remember when this article first hit, and quite a few people wrote to the Times and the author (including me.). I didn't keep the author's response, but she was somewhat apologetic, and slightly conciliatory. She obviously wants to love needlepoint, but was feeling social inferiority to her knitting friends. These same friends considered knitting an 24 x 6" strip of pearl stitches to be a knitting success!
Thanks, Don. I wondered what the reaction to this was at the time. (I must have missed it, no longer getting the NY Times since I moved from The City.) I wondered what peer pressure she was under. Hopefully today she is happily needlepointing circles around her friends!
The author of the NYT piece seems to be a bit schizophrenic, flitting from maligning to defending needlepoint. And I agree with you, Jane, though the piece was written 8 years ago, the dollar amounts seem a little low to me too. I needlepoint, and I knit. I understand both activities go in and out of fashion. But I'm not ever about fashion, I'm about what I enjoy, and I've enjoyed both activities since I was a pre-teen. My daughter took up both activities, I her late teens, after watching me for years. Her stash of yarn, knitting needles, canvases, and threads is rivaling mine!
Lucky Wendy, to have a daughter who understands. This means a stash you can borrow from, right? LOL
The author really puzzled me by defending and putting down NP simultaneously. I have no idea what was going on here, or maybe it is just not that well written?
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