Cross-Stitch & Such
 

ONE DAY, A MAN WALKED IN, with a strange request: He wanted a special frame for a sauce bottle he fancied. It must be so designed that he could hang it up on the wall. Tammy was taken aback but she could not turn the man away, especially after he had said he had heard that husband Lim was excellent with frames.

Tammy was surprised because her business is not frame making but selling cross-stitch kits, an old English ladies' past time which has caught on in Penang. And her shop,  "Stitchery & Such," just by Beach Street, is kept surprisingly busy.

Tammy thinks that the hobby is popular because it allows the ladies to express themselves in needle art work. The stitching done, the ladies come back for their creations to be tastefully framed by Lim  either to be hung or to be fashioned into trays. One factor which has favoured Tammy's shop is that many housewives now can afford maids who have freed them from household chores to indulge in their newly acquired hobby

Tammy remembered cross-stitch from her school days. She started with cross stitch fabric, then kits which she persuaded the supermarkets to sell

Her big break come when Anchor Thread spotted her and asked that she sell their thread haberdashery. She said she would but would they in return distribute her crotchet kits throughout the country?. They agreed. That was my big break, she says

In 1989 she set up shop with her husband, a technical school graduate, helping to frame the ladies handiwork. As the business took off; so did the frame making which began to carve itself an independent path, with strange orders such as the one for the sauce bottle.

Woman with Flowers

The kits come with a variety of choices.  Landscape ( a Renoir we saw some twenty feet away looked deceptively like a colour reproduction of the painting), figurines, still life. 

Colour is the main attraction. Once upon a time it was tapestry with wool with the design sometimes printed on the canvas that was popular. The brighter the better. And cartoons attract customers. Figurines and gardens gather small sales. What about sentimental pictures? The answer is a surprising No; the schmalzy  customer with a tender heart is a rarity. 

Do they buy the kit right off? Yes, Tammy explains. But some ask me to do a model for them for they want to see what the finished work will look like and have no confidence in their imaginative powers. I do an actual size model. Models are displayed on the walls of the shop. 
 

For those who do not have the patience of the time for cross-stitching there is the paper tole. A cross-stitch picture will take  6 months to complete - the Renoir and the Woman with Flowers  are examples - but a paper tole picture only takes one to two weeks to complete. Because it is a three dimensional piecing together, the enthusiast has to look at the picture carefully to see what part to cut  out and stick on. Snippings are laid on in  different  layers and silicon is used.  The skill lies in the cutting with a double edged blade, using a special cutting tool. Tammy started this line 5 years back and it is proving popular because the customer gets quicker results. #