A delight dispatch from Shannon Downey!

Badass Cross Stitch is your new BFF.

Hi friends! Today’s newsletter is from the delightful Shannon Downey, aka Badass Cross Stitch. Her wonderful book Let's Move the Needle: An Activism Handbook for Artists, Crafters, Creatives, and Makers; Build Community and Make Change! is out this Tuesday and I am SUPER EXCITED to tell you that I had the great privilege of blurbing this book! Like, my name is on the back of it!!!!! I LOVE IT, and YOU WILL TOO. Here’s Shannon:

Ohhhhh snap! Greta handed the reins over to me today. She really took a risk. ;)

Hello all! It’s Shannon Downey aka Badass Cross Stitch and I can’t wait to bathe you in delight while Greta knits placidly in the corner. 

So many things delight me. It was a challenge to narrow them down. Here we go!

1. I am going to start off with a strategic cheat, a two-for-one: I have singer/songwriters Erin McKeown and Rebecca Loebe playing on repeat right now. Nothing says fall has arrived quite like a cup of tea and these two crooning in your ear holes. If you need a gateway song start with “Blackbirds” by Erin and “Marguerita” by Rebecca. 

2. Rusty-patched bumble bees delight me! I’ve been working with pollinator scientists at the Chicago Botanic Garden for the last year to find fun ways to connect community to their research. I am now mildly obsessed with the rusty-patched bumble bee, an endangered species native to Illinois. These little chonkos are so damn cute. Here’s a short documentary about them. Also, I made a coloring page about the bee and all their favorite plants that bloom sequentially from early spring to late fall. Download the page and enjoy some coloring!

3. Snowpiercer! Let me preface this by saying I hated the movie Snowpiercer, but I LOVE the series on AMC+. A never-ending apocalyptic train ride riddled with class wars, anti-heroes, and redemption stories with Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs! I finished it the other day and cried. Need I say more? I think not. 

4. Weaving absolutely delights me and every class and workshop that I’ve ever taken at the Chicago Weaving School has been a little miracle. The founder, Natalie Boyett, is a brilliant teacher. She recently guest starred in my Patreon community and offered a reed tray weaving workshop. In under an hour, we were weaving geniuses. For real, one person entered their tray into a county fair the very next day and won a blue ribbon! You can access the workshop video in my Patreon (pay-what-you-can) if you want to make one. 

   

5. I spend a lot of time in cemeteries. I don’t know why more people don’t. They are beautiful, quiet, and full of nature and fascinating bits of art and history. Whenever I travel, I make sure to visit a local cemetery. My favorite cemetery in Chicago is Rosehill Cemetery. The sheer number of deer is astounding. When I die, I would love a weird community space for a grave that invites people to come sit and craft together with my ghost.

Outside of Chicago, my favorite cemetery so far is the Old San Juan cemetery in Puerto Rico. This ocean front bleached white graveyard is full of elaborately carved gravestones. Stunning!

Well, that experience was delightful! I hope there is something here that sparks your interest. Let’s hang out soon, maybe while I’m on book tour?!

Big Love,

Shannon

A quick note from Greta: last call for book club + a giveaway

The GRETAGRAM book club zoom hang is THIS Sunday — procrastinators, now is your time to shine!!!!! If you’ve read Danzy Senna’s Colored Television (or if you plan on devouring it, like, tomorrow), you’re invited to discuss it with a crew of delightful readers on Sept. 29 at noon CT. Just email greta m johnSEN at gmail dot com. (I say SEN because gretamjohnSON is being very gracious but I’d like to give her an email break!)

ALSO!!! I’m going to give away a copy of Shannon’s book!!! As usual, all paid GRETAGRAM supporters will be in the giveaway drawing, which I’ll do first thing tomorrow morning. That means if you’re not a paid subscriber but you’ve been thinking about it, now is the time to do it! My intention is to keep this newsletter totally paywall-free so that anyone who wants to read it has access to it. If you’re able, please support my work to ensure that I can keep making stuff you (hopefully) enjoy!

Talk to you next week!

P.S. Do you like this email?! Spread the delight and forward it to a friend! (Or spam an enemy, lol!)