My eldest needed another prop for a play; this time it was ugly needle craft. Hm. In theory, to make ugly needle craft you need to do the opposite of all that is done for good needle craft. The director sent an image of cross stitch as an example, but these guidelines would work for most kinds of needle craft, should you find yourself needing to make cringe-worthy thread embellished decor. So here are my pointers:

• Use poorly woven cloth that does not have an even or straight weave (I used a scrap of a cotton drop cloth)
• Use inexpensive thread (I think this thread came from a bracelet kit)
• Don’t starch the cloth or iron or tape edges
• Have only a vague plan, don’t mark cloth with guidelines
• Watch an engaging movie, don’t correct the stitching mistakes
• Completely ignore color theory
• Mess up repeating patterns
• Try for long straight lines of stitching
• Put in a spelling mistake
• Use all capitals, make them different sizes
• Left align the words
• Use strange color changes for the letters

Honestly, this should have everyone’s OCD twitching, even if you don’t usually have OCD.