Well, hello! Welcome to my new little corner of the World Wide Web. As you may know, my cousin, Crafty Query, used to handle the interviews here and did so with such style and panache. It’s no wonder my mother always wanted me to be more like him. He was so friendly and engaging, people were always drawn to him. I was more of a wallflower, so everyone wanted me to be more like Crafty. Crafty, Crafty, Crafty!

Well look at me now, ma! Look at me now. Where is your precious Crafty now? I’ll tell you where he’s not. Doing interviews for the Subversive Cross Stitch. That’s where! Where he’s not, I mean. Ha! I hope he likes it in Miami with his rich new husband and their fleet of servants and their private island getaway and their fancy hybrid cars. Pffft.

Anyhoo, I’m delighted that my first interview is a four-pronged affair! Culled from the Subversive Cross Stitch Flickr group, I’m pleased to introduce you to four of the creamiest cross stitchers of the crop! 0

Next we have Claire, (aka “Mooosh”) of Miso Funky, a Glasgow-based sweatshop where it appears that a giraffe and a bluebird are forced to create home decor and samplers to funkify your life. That’s what we assume from looking at their website header, anyway. They do good work, that giraffe and that bluebird. Here's Miso Funky’s website and the shop here.

Stitchy: Hey there, Claire! I love all the home décor you create. Is your home festooned with cross stitched creations or do you tend to save them for the shop or give them away as gifts?

Claire: I'd love to say that I live in a mansion where everything is cross-stitched, but in reality, there is but one item of my work hanging in our modest home at the moment. Every so often I try to remedy that and put some work up, but I am usually too busy stitching for others' pleasure. Recently I even had to take some work off my own walls to send to an exhibition. If I could only get that giraffe to get his ass in gear, then I'd maybe have a better decorated home!

Stitchy: In your efforts to ease people’s comfort during trying times, do you ever worry that someone will be caught in an emergency situation and suddenly start poppin’ and lockin’? Are fresh moves really the answer during a water landing or a when encountering a particularly nasty batch of killer shrews?

Claire: Over the years, I've faced many trying times, usually down to having to get my animal so-called assistants out of various scrapes. The only way to really counter attacks from angry shrews, global terrorism or indeed any kind of threat to your personal safety is to break out the moves and get bodypoppin'. If that fails, then run away. So, really Miso Funky is offering public safety advice through the medium of craft.

Stitchy: Your "Sniff Glue Worship Satan" piece tickled the wee out of our dear Julie Jackson. I found it to be very valuable advice. I’m always searching for ways to improve the quality of my life until the end times come. Do you have any parting nuggets of wisdom to share, or any new projects in the works that we should look out for?

Claire: That sampler is probably my favourite design and it was inspired by a t-shirt of my heavy metal lovin' husband's. It is surprisingly the most divisive of my pieces too – more people seem to take offence at the blasphemy than they do at the swearing. However, if anyone is offended by either, I find it terribly sad that their sense of humour has been removed in their sleep. New projects include the brand new “What Would Martha Do?” to cater my American friends as well as some bigger art pieces which will be coming to you as soon as I get a moment to myself – these animals are very demanding. There's also plans afoot for some kits and some collaborations with other crafty businesses in the coming year.

Stitchy: Wow, you’re a busy girl! Hooray, I love it! You may need to add a lemur to the staff. I hear they’re very hard workers.

Hmmm, what’s that buzz? I haven’t had my nightly tumbler of vodka yet, it must be Bee Listy! Bee Listy is a hereditary stitcher and whips up her own patterns that often stick it to the Man. Watch out, this sweet bee can sting! Here's some links for further exploration: Ms. Listy’s website, her Etsy shop, her blog, and a group blog she's on as well.

Stitchy: Hi Bee! Can I call you Bee? I love what you’ve done with the word “motherfucker”. The sweet font, the wee flowers, the diffusing properties of the lower case “m”. Nice job. When you stitch a swear word, do you say it over and over in your head until it doesn’t mean anything any more, or does it still pack a punch? Do you get that fun “Heh. Take that!” moment when you hold it up?

Bee Listy: Of course you can call me Bee! This motherfucker is one of my favorite pieces – I almost wish I had kept it. You know, I’m full of anger. I have a lot of rage – so when I’m stitching up a word like motherfucker, it still packs a punch. I absolutely do get the “Heh!” when it’s finished.

Stitchy: Preach it, sister! As I write these questions, I’m eating Lindor Truffles in my sweats and I was going to eat them anyway, but now it almost feels like a political act. You don’t often see snarky sentiments aimed at skewering societal expectations in such a straightforward, and yet somehow quaint, way. What kind of feedback do you get from people who see these on your website?

Bee Listy: I get awesome feedback – "fuck your fascist beauty standards" sold pretty quickly, and got a lot of love from people who saw it. I think that taking a traditional feminine craft and putting feminist messages out into the world through that craft is a revolutionary act.

Stitchy: I love your "skulls" piece. I’ve had one for as long as I can remember! Posers. Do you like skulls in a piratey way or a goth way? Personally I could go either way. So, what’s next for BeeListy? Any upcoming works that we simply can’t live without? (Sell it, sister.)

Bee Listy: I liked skulls was a custom piece for my friend Lara, who is an amazing inked biker in Ohio. I’m more of a pirate though. Hmm…what’s next… Well, right now I’m working on a piece for the Minnesota State Fair, conceptualizing a series of queer theorists’ portraits, working on an AIDS Awareness sampler, and trying to complete my collection of DMC flosses. Thanks for talking with me!!

Stitchy: My dear Bee, it is I who thanks you. Sounds like you’ve got some amazing things coming up, I can’t wait to see it all! Keep fighting the good fight, stitch by stitch.

And finally, we visit with the ever tasty Beefranck (also known as Bridget). By day she probably has some kind of job doing something-or-other, but by night, she stitches up a storm of pithy needlework with sidesplitting effect. On Mondays, she presents Beefranck's Emporium of Embroidered Excellence and Spendiferious Stitchery, plus the occasional Stitchgasm at Mr X Stitch’s website. And she has an Etsy shop. She also has a podcast! Holy crap, she’s got it going awwwwn! Go on with your bad, bee-fy self!

Stitchy: Nice to meetcha, Beefranck. So, you realize you’re going to have to give us the scoop about your name, right? I’m sorry, but there’s just no way around it. Then we’ll get to the cross stitchy goodness. Does it have anything to do with your mother’s penchant for order that is so nicely captured in the piece about “bloody submission”?

Bridget: If I had the chance I would go back in time and place an underscore - bee_franck. But beefranck is who I am now, and I've come to accept it - even if sometimes people call me beef. Isn't that every woman's dream, having a meat-related nickname?

My first name is Bridget and my husband and some friends have been known to occasionally call me Bee. My last name is ridiculously long and starts with Franck, so one of my friends sometimes calls me Franck. Then one day a she called me Bee Franck, and my username was born. I like the play on "be frank" and I never have a problem with my username being taken when I register somewhere. [I just now got the reference - duh! jj]

Stitchy: I admit, I focused on the word “beef”. Thanks for clearing that up. I noticed you have quite a few pieces devoted to YouLookNiceToday.com. Quite a few of your pieces use quotes or song lyrics that a lot of people can relate to. You seem to have a finely-honed funny bone. What merits a piece of cross stitching in its honor?

Bridget: It's true, I've had a lot of inspiration from the You Look Nice Today podcast, mainly because it's consistently laugh-out-loud funny. It reminds me of late night conversations my friends and I have had, except funnier. Also, Merlin Mann says the most project-worthy things I've ever heard. Hasty Fellatio is a perfect example of that, and in the last episode alone he said both "vagina bandit" AND "clitoris sweeper." I ask you - how could I NOT stitch at least one of those? [I'm also a huge fan of the Mann! jj]

Some of my projects are random things my friends have said, like "I don't think about your downstairs" or "Have I ever told you my horse semen story?" I love the idea that some of the things I've stitched have never been stitched before and will never be stitched again. I always thought that my friends and I would be the only ones that would find those funny, but the stitches have gotten some favorable responses from people who found them on Flickr.

My favorite kind of project has to do with contrasting the subject with some really lovely, sweet borders. My goal is to make my stitches to look like traditional needlework until you get close enough to read the text. Sometimes I hear a phrase that I just can't get over until I stitch it, like having a song stuck in my head. Sometimes it's actually a pattern or the font that inspires me. When I saw an old fashioned pattern of girls holding hands, I thought, "That's the border for "Hoes in My Room." When I saw the font that I used for "eat farts" I KNEW that I had to stitch those words in that font. Some books of traditional and antique samplers inspired my Jonathan Coulton "First of May" sampler as well as the Squirrel Nut Zippers "Hell" sampler.

Stitchy: When you come up with an idea for a piece, especially like the one called “Hell” above, do you find yourself pretending to be sick so you can leave work early so you can start on them immediately, or do you have a notebook or internal list of things you want to make. What’s the hottest thing on the burner right now that you’re itching to start?

Bridget: I've had a lot of ideas that I've lost because I never wrote them down. I've gotten into the habit of typing my ideas into a note in my iPhone. This has led to a rather awkward situation involving a nosey co-worker and the phrase "sorry about your penis" - but otherwise, the system works well for me.

I have a couple of ideas I'm excited about right now. I've got an idea for another large-scale antique-style sampler with song lyrics. I hate to say exactly what because sometimes things change as I design them. I also have an idea for another Dr. Horrible themed blackwork that I'm almost done designing. Blackwork is a style I really love, so I'm trying to find ways to use it more often. I did a minipop stitch recently and I want to do more of those, too - so many ideas, so little time.

Thanks so much! I never would have made anything if it weren't for Subversive Cross Stitch and Julie Jackson, so it's a real honor for me to be featured here. :) [Aw!! Thanks - I've been admiring your work for a long time, as you know jj]

Stitchy: I love your treatment of the antique-style samplers, they really are an inspiration. And I’m vibrating with excitement about that Dr. Horrible business. Get back to work, I can’t wait forever!

Thanks to all these amazing stitchers and designers for helping me through my first round of interviews! Thanks to you, I now have four new internet crushes. Great, that’s another four shrines to build and I’m going to need to get stuffing for the life-sized dolls I’m making of you . . .

I can’t wait to nose around in someone else’s bidness next time. Won’t you join me?

Stitchy McYarnpants