Evolve or Dissolve™
Why I believe we can honor the traditions of needlework without being bound by the way we’ve always done business.
I love cross stitch.I love the history of it, the fabrics and fibers, the creativity, and especially the fact that something as simple as a needle, thread and a piece of fabric can become something that is treasured for generations. None of that needs to change.
But the business of cross stitch?
That absolutely needs to be allowed to change.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I’ve finally found three words that sum up how I feel about where our industry is headed—and how I intend to run my own business:
Evolve or Dissolve™.
The Craft and the Business Are Not the Same Thing
I think sometimes we confuse preserving the traditions of needlework with preserving the way the needlework business has traditionally operated.
They aren’t the same thing.
For years, there has been an accepted way of bringing a cross-stitch design to market. Design the chart. Have a model stitched. Have it finished. Photograph it. Create the cover. Send it through the traditional distribution channels. There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing it that way. But there is also nothing inherently right about doing it that way.
It is simply the way it has been done.
Technology has changed virtually every other part of our lives and businesses. We design on computers. We communicate by email. Shops sell online. Designers sell directly to stitchers. We watch Flosstube. We discover new designs on Instagram and Facebook. We photograph products with phones. We create graphics digitally. Customers can see a new release and purchase it without ever leaving their sofa. We accepted all of those changes.Now we have another extraordinary technological change happening around us: artificial intelligence.
And yes, I use it.
What AI Does—and Doesn’t Do—in My Business
I want to be very clear about something.I design my cross-stitch charts. AI isn’t sitting somewhere designing Anabella’s cross-stitch patterns while I press a button. But I absolutely use technology, including AI, to help me present, market and build a business around my designs. One of the ways I use it is to create lifestyle imagery.
When I design a Christmas sampler, I want you to be able to imagine it hanging above a beautiful Christmas mantel.
When I design something for autumn, I may want to show you how wonderful it could look made into a pillow tucked into a chair with pumpkins nearby.
Maybe I want you to imagine a small stitched piece hanging from a basket, sitting on a shelf, made into an ornament or incorporated into a seasonal display.
Those images aren’t the product.
They’re inspiration.
The cross-stitch chart is the product.
And I think that distinction is incredibly important.
An $8 Cross-Stitch Chart Has to Make Economic Sense
Most of the charts we’re talking about sell for around $8.
Think about the traditional process for a moment. If every design has to be physically stitched before it can be released, someone has to spend the hours stitching it. Then perhaps it needs to go to a professional finisher. Props and a setting need to be assembled. It needs to be photographed. The photograph may need to be professionally edited. Marketing materials have to be created.That process can be wonderful. It can also take weeks or months and cost considerably more than the retail price of the product being created. And that happens before the designer has earned one dollar for actually designing the chart.
For a small independent creative business, those economics matter.
Technology now gives me the ability to take my actual design and show customers beautiful, creative possibilities for what they might do with it.
Why wouldn’t I use that?
Because that isn’t how we did it 30 years ago?
That’s not a good enough reason for me.
Inspiration Is Part of What We Sell
I’ve always believed that part of my job isn’t simply handing someone a chart. I want to make people excited about stitching it. I want someone to look at a design and think:
Oh! I could make that into a pillow.
That would look wonderful in my kitchen.
I could make that into an ornament.
I never would have thought about finishing it that way.
That’s one of the reasons Make Finishing Fun has become such an important part of Anabella’s.
Lifestyle imagery helps me tell that story.
If technology allows an independent designer to create those inspirational settings without physically constructing and photographing every possible finishing idea, I consider that an opportunity—not a threat to needlework.
And if our industry cannot adapt even to something as simple as designers using new technology to create inspirational lifestyle imagery, I think we have a much bigger problem ahead.
Where Will We Be Five Years From Now?
This is the question I think every creative business should be asking. Not just cross-stitch designers. Not just needlework shops.
All of us.
Technology isn’t going backward.
The way consumers discover products isn’t going backward.
The way people shop isn’t going backward.
The tools available to independent creators aren’t going backward.
Five years from now, I believe the businesses that thrive will be the ones that figured out how to distinguish between the traditions worth protecting and the business practices that simply became traditions because there weren’t better alternatives at the time.
Those are very different things. I want cross stitch to thrive. I want independent needlework shops to thrive. I want designers to thrive. I want new stitchers discovering this wonderful craft. And I want someone with a great creative idea to be able to build a successful small business without needing the resources of a much larger company just to compete.
New technology can help make that possible.
You Don’t Have to Do It My Way
This may be the most important thing I say.
I am not asking another designer to work the way I work. If another designer wants every single piece professionally model stitched and photographed, wonderful. If a needlework shop prefers to carry only designs presented with traditionally stitched models, that is its owner’s decision. If a stitcher prefers to purchase only charts with photographs of physically stitched models, she should absolutely make that choice.
I respect all of those decisions.
I simply expect the same courtesy in return.
I will decide how I run my business.
I won’t be bullied into operating Anabella’s according to someone else’s definition of how a cross-stitch designer is supposed to work simply because that’s how our industry has operated for decades.
I’ll experiment.
I’ll try things that haven’t been done before.
Some will work.
Some probably won’t.
When they don’t, I’ll learn from them and try something else.
That’s what evolving looks like.
Preserve the Craft. Evolve the Business.
There is something wonderfully ironic about using some of the most advanced technology we’ve ever created to help preserve and promote one of the oldest and simplest creative activities imaginable.
I don’t see those things as opposites. I see them as partners.
The technology can change.
The marketing can change.
The business model can change.
The tools can change.
And through all of it, someone can still sit down at the end of the day, thread a needle, make one little X after another and create something beautiful with her own two hands.
That’s the part worth preserving.
Everything surrounding it?
I’m willing to question it.
I’m willing to change it.
And I’m excited to see where all of this takes us.
I know which direction I’m going.
EVOLVE OR DISSOLVE™
I choose evolve.
— Elayne
Anabella’s
One More Thing
There is another concern surrounding AI that deserves to be acknowledged: its environmental impact.
AI uses energy. Data centers use resources. That matters, and I don’t think the answer is to pretend otherwise. I believe we should continue asking hard questions about how these technologies are powered, developed and used responsibly.
But I also don’t believe that acknowledging the environmental cost of a technology requires us to reject the technology itself.
Nearly everything involved in running a modern creative business has a footprint—manufacturing, printing, shipping, travel, websites, cloud storage, photography and the devices we use every day. That doesn’t mean we stop creating, producing or communicating. It means we keep looking for better and more responsible ways to do those things.
That’s where I stand with AI.
I can care about its environmental impact and recognize its potential. I can believe the technology needs to become more efficient and use it thoughtfully today.
And none of it changes what sits at the heart of Anabella’s.
The needle is still real.
The thread is still real.
The fabric is still real.
The design is still mine.
And the hands that ultimately bring it to life are yours.
I’m not interested in replacing the craft. I’m interested in helping ensure it has a future.
EVOLVE OR DISSOLVE™
Same passion. A brighter tomorrow.
