May the Stitch be with you*

I love Star Wars. Love, love, love it! And when you combine it with embroidery, well, it really doesn't get much better in my book. So I was really happy when I spotted woundupladybug's Star Wars embroideries in the pool a little while ago. And of course I just had to know more about these fab creations, so I contacted her and asked her a few questions which she graciously answered and gave me some food for thought in the process. Thanks, J!

You're making some Star Wars embroidery at the moment, intended for a quilt as I understand it. Can you tell us about why you have picked Chewie, Storm troopers et all?
I picked the images that I thought would be the most instantly recognizable. Star Wars has been a part of pop culture for close to three decades. I also wanted to chose characters that were central to the original story.

What do icons of modern pop culture gain by being embroidered?
Embroidery is much like photography, it can capture the mood of the period. Embroidering these characters doesn’t add or elevate the status, but it can, in a more personal way, create a snapshot of our feelings about the characters. So it’s not so much what the characters have to gain but what we can gain. As crafts come back into prevalence our nostalgia for the eighties can be translated into to something more tangible - something we can keep. At the time our grandparents or great-grandparents were crafting, they were creating heirlooms that would be pasted down and treasured. But our culture seems to live in the moment and does not value the past. So we have lost some of the desire to record our own personal histories. I love the idea of capturing my childhood in these relics of pop culture.

How do people react when you tell them you are embroidering Star Wars
characters?
When I tell people that I’m embroidering these Star Wars characters they usually say that it “brings them back.” I also get lots of requests for my patterns for the characters.


*Sorry, I just couldn't help myself. ;-)