#i dont think i can overstate the level of absurdity that entire brief 'friendship' was

[stitchposts]

Yes, and I had someone who had done 5 minutes of backstitching in their life tell me to my face that mine was 'not that impressive' while looking at a project of mine that routinely makes other embroiderers stare in fear before yelling expletives at me (all in good fun, but it keeps happening)

Strong linework is something I take pretty seriously and while most newbies are much less... assholish, than that response I got from my example here which happened to my face when the person had just met me, I'm pretty used to having to explain levels of difficulty to non-embroiderers. My usual analogy is explaining that it's like inking in traditional art - every wibble and wobble will show, so strong clean lines are a showcase of the skill. But that's not something laypeople inherently know! And it's really fun to have these discussions with laypeople. I actively enjoy it and being able to talk about my art. It's still funny in most cases, and it's rare for it to be infuriating, because why would I expect laypeople to know these things?

The exception is that person who literally fucking corrected me and told me what was not impressive about my own work. This ended up being a pretty good litmus test for the rest of my interactions with them as I taught them beginner embroidery, where for the duration of it they just used me as a pattern maker, supplier of materials, and culminated in only interacting with me to tell them how to set up a business and gauge their ability to churn out products. When I shut that down, I stopped being talked to entirely. The first interaction is still pretty funny at least because like. Who the hell corrects an artist and tells them what is or isn't hard about their art??? That guy sure did lmao!!!!!!!!!!

it is so, so, so funny to interact with people that don't super know embroidery, who try to pick out which of my projects is more... skilled? or whatever. one time i had someone tell me to my face that my linework wasn't impressive and anyone could do backstitches, and they had learned how to backstitch last week so they could say this. someone else I've been teaching how to sew here and there told me that some patches I made recently and haven't put on this blog yet were true skill and above their skill level - they wanted to start with something easy! like massive block lettering on a stretchy tshirt!