Painting the Corner – One Stitch at a Time

Sometime before the holiday season I had made a quick tweet about difficulties I was facing with an embroidery project that I was working on. Soon after I had a DM conversation with one of my favorite twitter follows – Beth Philley. Beth then shared with me an amazing stamped cross stitch project she was working on of Cleveland catcher Bo Naylor. That conversation is what sparked the idea for this series. Beth’s work needed shared and I had the platform to do so.

Beth has been cross stitching and embroidering for most of her life. She can’t recall quite when she started, but it was sometime in elementary or junior high school. Her mom got her started in the textile arts first with sewing. Beth notes that back then it was common to sew a lot of their own clothes and that they would work on projects in the evenings while watching TV.

The same person who introduced her to the world of textiles also got her into baseball. Beth’s mom brought her into the world of baseball when she was a kid. Beth started as a huge fan of the Cincinnati Reds during the Big Red Machine era, but life did its thing and she stopped watching baseball. After recently entering a semi-retirement Beth started watching baseball again but this time with the Cleveland Guardians. She was hooked again with the sport and fell back into a natural routine of watching the game and doing her stitching.

Eventually all that watching and stitching inspired Beth to do a series of the Naylor brothers.

The picture below is of three pieces; Josh and his wife Chantel, Bo Naylor, and Myles Naylor. All three pieces are currently off at the framers for the final step in the process, but it cannot be understated how impressive these are.

Each piece represents thousands of stitches placed in such a way that the embroidery floss produces the right shading and highlights to bring the picture to textile. As someone who has spent more than 60 hours working on a cross stitch project that is a fraction of the size of these pieces, I was in awe when I saw this picture for the first time. For a bit of scale reference, there is a mouse in the upper corner and every linear inch will have between 14-22 stitches depending on the Aida (backing fabric) used for the project.

Anyone that follows Beth on twitter knows that she might be the biggest fan of the Naylor brothers for someone who doesn’t share a last name with them. Her love for the brothers being captured in her crafting is inspirational in its own right. To put that much time and effort into a project just because those players mean something to you is an underappreciated form of dedication as a fan.