Cross-stitching: the final frontier. These are the exploits of the librarian Charles. His three-week mission: to explore strange new books. To seek out new crafts and new materials. To boldly make where no man has made before!
I am a maker. I love exploring new ways to express my creativity through the things I create. I am often at my happiest when I am trying a new craft or project, anticipating the learning and challenges ahead of me.
I am also a Star Trek fan. My dad introduced me to the series through Star Trek: Voyager, and I enjoy the show’s focus on using science and logic to solve problems. Over the years, it has become one of my favorite sci-fi universes to visit. It feels like comfort food, a balm for the soul.
Imagine my excitement then when I discovered Star Trek: Cross-Stitch in the Johnson County Library collection. A collection of 38 cross-stitch projects themed around Star Trek? I immediately placed my request and checked it out.
Upon first inspection, I immediately saw I would need more help to make this book work. The introduction has a mere two pages of text with no images explaining the materials and techniques you will need. As a newcomer to cross-stitching, this was not enough for me. I ended up watching a couple YouTube tutorials to get the basics down and then came back for the patterns.
The patterns are grouped by difficulty and range from “Ensign” rank at the low end, all the way up to “Captain.” I appreciated that although the pattern charts were more complex for the difficult patterns, the actual written instructions on each pattern were mostly suggestions about how much material you need and the best order for adding colors. This information was useful without being restrictive to the crafter. I made one “Ensign” and one “Captain” level project, pictured below.
Ensign Level - "Captains of Star Trek"
Captain Level - "Shut up, Wesley!"
Overall, I had a positive experience with the book. Not useful for the absolute novice by itself, but there are several good resources online to teach you the ropes and allow you to start making some fun designs. I would love to see the book updated with patterns based on Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, and all the other awesome new Trek that is coming out now.
-Live long and prosper