If you've stitched Margaret Sherry's adorable Make a wish... mouse from issue 216, you're probably wondering where to get the mount from. Never fear, you can get it here.

Don't forget to send us a pictureof your finished mouse or mice!

Bee Listy is a talented cross stitch designer fromo the USA. She specialises in alternative cross stitch, particularly focussing on political themes and portraits, and is one of the stars of our Urban Cross Stitching feature in issue 216. Below is her full interview. Watch this space for full transcripts of our interviews with our other alternative stitching stars, Phil Davison and Jamie Chalmers, coming soon.

What do you find so appealing about cross stitch?
I’m one of those people who has a mind that never stops working—the only break I get from the constant stream of thoughts, worries, and questions is stitching. Reading a pattern and counting out those tiny xes quiets my mind. It’s almost meditative.

How did you first get involved in cross stitch?
My paternal grandfather Walter was a stitcher – cross-stitch, needlepoint, crewel work. My mom also used to stitch, and I grew up in a house with a lot of hand-stitched work displayed in frames, or on linens. After I finished graduate school, I was working a very demanding job, and needed something to occupy my free time. I purchased one of Julie Jackson’s Subversive Cross-Stitch kits (Irony is Not Dead). I completed it, and then realized I could make my own patterns. The first pattern I ever made turned out pretty badly! The letters were crooked, the crossbones on the skull were messy. I experimented a lot with graph paper, a scanner, and then I started using PC Stitch, but I still hand draw things sometimes. But my grandpa and mom really encouraged me to keep stitching.

Were you interested in needlecraft when you were growing up, or was it an interest that developed later in life?
I had a latch hook kit once, but I don’t recall stitching at all as a kid. I started about six years ago.

What do you think the art form can offer people? How would you tempt someone who has never stitched before to pick up the needle?
I know that everyone gets different satisfaction from different types of art and craft. While other people may experience the relaxing meditative state I experience when I’m really in the groove, it may be different for other people. The handful of people who I know who became interested in stitching through me basically saw that they could create something original. I am lucky to be part of a big DIY community, and so rather than buying a gift, I know a lot of people who would rather hand make something, or purchase something handmade. There is a lot of satisfaction in seeing a project through conception to completion.

Where do you get your inspiration from?
The bulk of work I’ve been doing in the last couple of years is portraiture. Outside of commissioned work, I choose subjects who have influenced my life. For instance, I just finished a small portrait of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel—I chose them because their music made an indelible mark on me. I grew up listening to them with my mom and even now that I’m an adult, when we’re together we listen to their greatest hits album and sing at the top of our lungs together. I’ve done portraits of politicians, world leaders, authors, activists, celebrities – it really just depends on who I’m feeling inspired by at the time. The list of people I want to stitch is so long, I’ll never complete them all because I’m always thinking of new people, or getting different requests from people. I get suggestions from my partner, as well as friends and members of my family. I stitched Oprah Winfrey after it was suggested to me by an eight-year-old member of my family, David Michael.

What other needlecraft artists influence your work?
I wouldn’t say I’m influenced by other artists, but there are a handful of people I really appreciate for what they’re doing to create community for stitchers. I have been most directly influenced by Julie Jackson’s work because I do some subversive stitching of my own, but one of my favourite stitchers right now is Jamie Chalmers (aka Mr X Stitch). Check out this thread on crafter.org.

Also, I love Rayna and Johanna from Radical Cross Stitch. Their work is absolutely outstanding.

How do more traditional stitchers react to your work?
I don’t know! I mostly get feedback from other non-traditional stitchers. I get a lot of love from non-needle working crafters though. I sew in coffee shops around Minneapolis and St Paul, Minnesota, USA where I live, and I get a lot of attention from knitters who are very impressed with my work.

Bee's grandmother and gradfather's stitched portrait

You’ve stitched a lot of portraits, from Bea Arthur to Benazir Bhutto. Are there any that have a particular special place in your heart or special significance to you?
Most definitely. The last Christmas gift I ever gave my grandfather Walter was a stitched portrait of him with my grandmother, taken from a portrait of them from May 1943. I worked on it every free moment of the day for three weeks to finish it in time for a Christmas gift for the two of them. He was the stitcher so he was very impressed with the work, and despite being very ill and tired, he asked me a number of technical questions about the work, and was impressed with how orderly the back of the piece looked. The second most beloved would be the piece I did of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever done with the largest colour palette (more than 70 colours).

Who would you like to immortalise in cross stitch next?
The list is so long—I’m on an author kick right now, so maybe Jeannette Winterson? I’ve also being feeling strongly toward politics – Aung San Suu Kyi is someone I’ve made a pattern of, but haven’t stitched yet. I’ve considered doing a series of dictators, but I’m not sure I could stare at their faces long enough to actually stitch them. I’ll likely do Michelle Obama soon. She’s an icon in so many different ways right now, so I would like to find a picture that shows her brains, her strength, and her femininity. 

What are your most popular designs?
Portrait patterns of Johnny Cash. I did a portrait of him when I first started doing portraits, and it’s not technically great and had a small palette – but the owner loves it.

On your blog you talk about your craft swap. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
I’m a member of Craftster.org, which often has member-organized swaps. I recently participated in a LGBT/allies themed swap. I kept meaning to showcase the different items from the swap on Queercraft, but haven’t done it yet.

Who do you think will be the big names in cross stitch design in the next few years?
Well, there are a lot of people very active right now, and I hope it keeps growing. The thing that technology is doing for cross-stitch is making it easier for people to come up with their own patterns. I think that notoriety should be going to people who are pushing the boundaries of the craft – I think that Jamie Chalmers is working really hard to produce patterns that appeal to men, a niche that really needs to be filled. Bee Franck is doing some really beautiful black work mixed with her popular culture references. Rayna Fahey and Johanna from Radical Cross Stitch make some stuff that focuses on radical politics of feminism and ecology.

What do you think the role of needlecraft is in the 21st century?
I think that we’re riding a wave of DIY right now that I really hope continues: people are creating funny work, political work, and still creating traditional work—but the spin that some artists are putting on their work is really interesting. There are a handful of people who are taking inspiration from things on the internet (Jamie Chalmers has a series of spam email cross-stitches), and we’re also seeing other popular culture things represented in stitches, like art from recently released records.

Thoroughly modern designs are Bee's speciality

Do you think embroidery in general, and particularly cross stitch, are becoming more popular and, for want of a better phrase, socially acceptable?
I was recently recognised as the woman who sews on the train. I often block off sections of pieces so that I can fill in areas away from the pattern – and this is something I often do on my morning commute in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. The number of people who show interest in learning more, or commissioning a piece grows all the time, so I’m hoping to see more people stitching and appreciating beautiful needlework. In the USA, the huge return to DIY crafts really seemed to take off after the 9/11/01 attacks – some sociologists have said that people felt like they needed to return to the home, even figuratively, and by creating new original works (whether it be knitting, crochet, baking, needlecraft), people are feeling more organically connected to their surroundings rather than just buying gifts or décor at a big box store like Ikea. Owning original artwork is possible for people because so many people are creating original art.

Do you think we’ll see a continued growth in ‘alternative’ samplers and designs in cross stitch?
Absolutely. You know, I’d be making more patterns if I had a bigger desk to work on! I find it hard to just sit at the computer and create an awesome pattern – I like to stretch out with the sketchpad, then play on the computer. I need a better computer too- one of those tablet styles, and a big wide desk to work on. I live in a small, crowded flat.

What event in your own life would you most like to record in stitches?
This is the hardest question I’ve ever been asked in the handful of interviews I’ve done. Would I choose a jubilant moment, like when I finished my masters degree? Or a heartbreaking moment that I’m grateful to have moved through? There are so many events that I want to happen but haven’t occurred yet. I think I’d like to do a sampler that would record all of my various jobs, or the radical activist groups that I’ve been a part of. There is a photo somewhere of me as a 10-year-old child holding my fat orange cat that would be great to stitch – a perfect moment with a beloved pet, when life was very simple. I did stitch a portrait of myself which I gave to my mother for her birthday a couple of years ago. It was very strange to stare at my own face for a couple of weeks.

If you could choose one cross stitch sampler saying to sum up your attitude to life, what would it be?
I did a small sampler of it already – if I can bake a cake, I can build a bomb. I don’t advocate violence, but I believe that the power of people to rise up is important.

You do a lot of bespoke work. How does one go about getting a design commissioned from you?
It’s surprisingly easy – send me an email, a photo or an idea, and we go from there. I like to work with the commissioner to choose a good photo – what is the light like? Are there a lot of details, a broad variety of colours? I then spend a lot of time cleaning up the photo using Adobe Photoshop before I start working on the pattern in PC Stitch. PC Stitch is a wonderful program, but it doesn’t have it’s own artistic eye. I like to change things – substitute colours that the computer suggests for more vibrant colours that I like better, or think will look better. You can get a lot more depth from a variety of grey than just using flat black, DMC 666 can look too orangey if it’s next to the wrong colour, and things like that. The satisfaction of presenting a finished commissioned piece to someone is wonderful. My partner’s mother commissioned a piece from me last year as a gift for someone, and I had the joy of hearing about all of the people who were touched by the simple beauty of both the artwork, and the gesture of the actual gift.

Thank you so much for thinking of me!  This has been a pleasure.