Oh, I tried the direct route years ago.
I sent the couple an email telling them exactly what effect their actions had on me and that I felt what they did was wrong and not from God.
As with many situations I have tried to stand up to in my life, it was met with the sound of crickets. Not so much as a peep or even an acknowledgement in reply. And I'm pretty sure their email still works, because to this day, even though I'd asked them to take me off their list, I still get their generic mass email testimonies about all their ministry.
Maybe by some chance they never read it, though I don't see how, because when I send an email to someone, I include my name in the subject line so they know it's not just spam. But maybe their email service discarded it into a junk folder and they never even saw the headline, who knows.
I just know that I DID try to confront them, but they either never read it or chose to answer with silence.
The patterns have to be bought as they originally were and are not available in PDF form. They are published, much like books, and have been out of print for a very long time. I just looked at a few major sellers and they only have a handful of the original design. Trying to find them is like trying to find a rare book that no one prints.
The woman who designed them put out a new one about every year for about 20 years, I think around 1980 - 2000, plus the Nativity Scene. I am a bit of a compulsive completionist -- back in the day, I had every design up to the current year and was collecting them as they came out. I'm pretty all or nothing in that way. Even if I never stitched them all, I'd want all the patterns. They are now considered vintage and most are very hard to find.
I'd also ideally want to buy them new, and probably 2 of each. The print was very fragile even back then, and unfortunately, they printed the designs right over the folds of the paper, so by the time I would get done with one, some of the design had literally worn off the paper just from regular use. I would want one copy for use, and another to refer to as a backup, as it took me years to finish even one design.
Maybe I can demonstrate how intricate the patterns are:
This is a cover of the beloved camel I had completed that was one of the unfortunate victims of the "spiritual cleansing" I was given. The designs are so detailed that this leaflet folds out into several pages, with each page covering just a section of the design, something like this: (Unfortunately, I couldn't find any corresponding pictures, so this is a bit of a mish-mash.)
Each color and symbol on the pattern is a different shade of thread, and this isn't even one of her most complex designs. You might see the same symbol or pattern repeated, but they will have different colors, so each one represents a different shade of thread that you have to change to every time. In the above picture, the pattern probably has at least 3 more pages to it, and back then, they all folded out like a puzzle, making it very delicate. I don't really want to buy the patterns used because I don't know what kind of condition they'd be in, and even in the secondhand markets, you can't find all the designs.
This is another example of the complexity of just a small part of one of her patterns:
The other issue is that they call it cross stitch, of course, because all of the basic stitches are an X, as you can see here. They also use half, quarter, and three quarters stitches for more dimension and are much more difficult to do. As you can see, because of the square nature, cross stitch designs have a bit of a boxy-ness to them, much like pixels in a photograph.
The fabric you use has various weaves, such as 18 count (18 stitches per inch) or 24 count (24 stitches per inch.) If you choose a fabric with too large of a count (such as the 18,) the design is going to lean more towards looking like the graphics in an old Atari game, and no one wants to put that amount of time and money into a design that's going to turn out looking like Space Invaders.
So, I would need to choose a fabric with a very small stitch size and my eyes don't have the endurance that they used to, as I had completed these projects in my childhood and teens. One of the most frustrating, or challenging things about cross stitch is that you can work for 2 hours and literally only finish a handful of stitches. I don't think my eyesight has that kind of stamina anymore for such finely detailed work.
The other hindrance is the cost. For projects of this magnitude, you need things like a specialty hoop to work with, and then there is the cost of fabric, all the thousands of colors of embroidery and specialty threads needed, and then having them matted and framed under glass (which is a necessity in order to protect all that work.)
These days, my main interests are writing, travel, and, for the long shot dream, early retirement if possible, so that's what's taking up all of my heart and resources for now.
I really do appreciate your encouragement, Goji!
If I ever do go back to the needle arts, I'll probably pick up sewing again, because it produced more tangible results that could be better used to serve others rather than just hanging on the wall.
