Tag: not aromantic

Not Quite Aro: A K-Mart Stitching Stuff Post

Handdrawn illustration of a mountain road scene with trees in the foreground and bushes in the background. Scene is overlaid with the dark green/light green/white/grey/black stripes of the aro pride flag. The text Aro Worlds Resources sits across the image in a black, antique handdrawn type, separated by two ornate Victorian-style black dividers.
~ K. A. ~ Leave a comment

I began to make my cross-stitch pride patches because I couldn’t afford to buy aromantic pride merch. (I want to support other queer creators, but shipping to and within Australia was absurdly prohibitive before a pandemic, months of shutdowns and inflation.) I now write tutorials and share patterns because I’m not the only queer needing to go DIY when it comes to displaying pride. Given these origins, affordability and accessibility are important to me in when considering my sewing materials. (Not to mention avoiding those dread postage costs!) Since K-Mart now offers budget-friendly cross-stitch supplies, I wanted to write up a review.

Two sets of floss, a packet of white aida fabric for cross stitch and gold-coloured crane embroidery sicssors arranged on a blue microfibre blanket. Floss set one: light lavender, lavender, pastel blue, light green, dark green, olive, brown, black. Floss set two: maroon, tan, red, coral, light pink, peach, lemon, white. These K-Mart flosses are wrapped with two white paper bands and have a matte texture. The aida is also quite matte. All items are shown inside clear packaging with K-Mart's "Anko" branding.

This post covers materials that can be used for creating cross stitch patches or making-over embroidery kits in pride colours, including 14-count aida, floss packs and crane scissors. Please note that all prices are in Australian dollars (AUD) and may not be available in other countries.

(Spoiler: I really recommend the aida!)

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Pride Month Patch Patterns: (Not Aro) Queer Text

Text reading "pride patch patterns" against a grey grid background. The words pride and pattern are written in a black handdrawn/script font and outlined with white. The word patch is drawn pixel-style like a cross stitch pattern and filled in with the green/light green/white/grey/black stripes of the aromantic flag.
~ K. A. ~ Leave a comment

I thought I’d continue the Pride Month theme by expanding my library of patterns to encompass non-aromantic identities. Alas, this isn’t a fully-inclusive collection! Many identities require letters not yet designed, as I’ve completed only one of my patch pattern alphabets. While today’s patterns do use some new or modified letters, time constraints meant that I chose identities with simpler-for-me names.

Four cross stitch patches sitting on top of a collection of various flag, arrow and heart pride patches. All feature the word "pride" sewn in the colours of the transgender (navy background with blue/white/pink border), rainbow (white background with white border), allo-aro (purple background with mottled pink/grey/mauve border) and nebularomantic (mint background with darker mint border) pride flags. Each letter is outlined in backstitch and every patch is finished with a buttonhole stitch edging.

Additional queer, polysexual, asexual and bisexual text patch patterns–along with a lower-case alphabet that can be adapted to any horizontal, five-striped pride flag–are available at my patch pattern gallery. Folks wishing “genderfluid” or “omnisexual” patches can use this alphabet to create their own patterns by following my tutorial. I also have several aromantic-spectrum text patterns, many of which can be adapted for asexual spectrum identities.

Folks who need help with materials, stitching, finishing or attaching patches should check out last week’s pride text tutorial and my tutorial master page.

Continue reading “Pride Month Patch Patterns: (Not Aro) Queer Text” →