Black Lives Matter

Pattern by Sarah Vargas of Notorious Needle. Download for free in her Facebook group: https://NotoriousNeedle.com/FacebookGroup

As you may know, stitching was historically used, in some cases, to express political and even subversive views and to involve women, who were typically the stitchers at the time, in causes and activities of importance to them and society. Women weren't in the room so they had to find ways to include themselves in the issues of the day.
I am fairly active in a number of Facebook stitching groups and have seen, over and over, people frustrated by political posts in stitching discussions.
"Can't we keep this to stitching," is the overarching mantra from these posters. 
My answer to that: Absolutely not.
StitchLife may be about stitching, but it's also about life - and life is messy (like the back of my stitch projects) and uncertain and complicated. Life is lived in gray areas. Stitching may bring color to our day-to-day but it isn't the only thing happening in any of our lives.
On any given day, our members may be living with grief, depression, abuse, food, housing, and/or financial insecurity, sexism, racism, xenophobia, hate, poor health, and so much more. Turning away from these life events because this is a "stitching group" is short-sighted.
We are here to help each other holistically - not just in finding a particular floss that is sold out at your LNS or big-box store.
StitchLife was founded on the premise that this is not your momma's needlepoint. We will not be silent. We will not blindly accept. We will not squash opinions, even when they are not in line with those of the founders of this publication. We will not stay quietly in the dark because we feel that whatever is happening in society doesn't impact our lives as stitchers. We will not bury our heads in the sand, ignoring what is going on around us just because we are a group of cross stitchers. 
As for StitchLife, just to be clear:

• We are an inclusive group that supports the LGBTQ+ community, believes that Black Lives Matter, feels love is love is love, and wants to keep learning about how to make the world a kinder, better place.
• We encourage healthy debate, question asking, support seeking, and ignorance busting in this group.
• We will not censor posts unless they are hate-filled rhetoric or outright lies.
• We also will not stand for the "I'm offended, please remove your post" stances on our Facebook groups because when you accepted the group rules, you were warned.

Thank you for reading all this, if you have, and please email me if you have any questions or issues. Or, because we welcome all opinons, please post below.

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