As chronic pain plagued me during January, thus derailing my plains, I’m starting Aro Week with something easy: my small collection of rainbow-shaped pride patches.
These patches were made using a five-stripe pattern available in K-Mart’s 22 Piece Cross Stitch Kit, albeit adjusted to better suit my taste in terms of shape and symmetry. (It can be stitched as is: I just have the compulsive need to tweak, change and modify every cross stitch or embroidery pattern I work!) As I’ve long wanted to make a rainbow pride patch but disliked my own attempts, finding this pattern in a kit I bought for the plastic hoop was a delightful bonus. I mean … what queer doesn’t want rainbows sewn onto their pride patch jacket?
(The pattern is printed on a piece of 11-count aida as this is a no-count cross-stitch kit. Instead of sewing on that fabric, I used it as a pattern to stitch on a piece of 14-count aida, which I turned into a cross stitch patch.)
So I stitched three rainbows representing my own identities: aromantic, allo-aro and abro. Despite some not-quite-perfect colour matches in the name of testing new floss, these three turned out nicely.
Then, because it’s Aro Week, I thought I’d expand the collection with an aro-ace patch. Alas, the edging floss I chose is awkwardly bright in real life and painful in colour-adjusted photos:
Hark at that eyestrain! I can explain that choice of orange-red edging floss by saying that I have two skeins that need using for something but the yellow/blue aro-ace flag is the only thing that (kind of) matches. I can mention my (also) compulsive need to use up floss I loathe so as not to be wasteful! I can … but there’s really no justifying that awfulness, is there? It looks even worse when sitting alongside my other pastel-toned rainbows:
So, in the name of Aro Week, I’ve … inflicted an eyestraining cruelty upon aro-ace folks’ beautiful flag. That’s not what’s supposed to happen, and I’ll have to create new aro-ace patch patterns as recompense.
I will also make more rainbows, but I’ve learnt my lesson about “using up” horrible floss.
If you should wish an affordable, starter cross-stitch kit with one pattern that’s easy to queer once you get your hands on more floss, the K-Mart one isn’t bad (save for its abundance of pink and pastel). I’d recommend that most adults replace the needles, however: the kit’s size 18 tapestry needles are too big for the 11-count aida provided.
Aro Worlds 