Cross Stitch Twitch is a unique concept that’s really starting to develop fast. We’ve gone into common misconceptions during the first post, and we’ve spoken to some of the most influential vbloggers in our second post on Twitch cross stitch. But now we get to speak to the mother of cross stitch Twitch; the first ever cross stitch streamer Sirithre, or Siri for short.
 
Unlike a lot of our other Twitch streamers, Siri couldn’t see other users and instead has a totally different way into the Twitch space. Video games.
 

While adding my list of games to backloggery.com I realized just how horrible I am about actually finishing games. This is mainly due to spending too much time playing MMOs.
Thus, my new year’s resolution for 2014 was to quit playing MMOs and to work on my backlog of games. So I started streaming so I’d still get the social interaction of MMOs to encourage me to stick to this plan.

 
And that’s where we start with the cross stitch.
 

I was actually quite literally the first cross stitch streamer on twitch. Creative wasn’t even announced yet, it had been quietly added to the directory without mention and only had a handful of digital artists at the time. Most still streamed their art under the game categories.
I started a project in November 2014 to make (late) Christmas presents for some of my favorite Twitch broadcasters with the plan to give it to them as a gift in person at PAX South. Since I was stitching their channel emotes as gifts I decided to stream them. This brought them and their communities into my stream and sometimes I would get hundreds and thousands of viewers where my gaming would have only brought in 20-30 at the time.

Most were interested in what Cross stitch even was, how I knew where to stitch, etc. Stitchers came in excited they hadn’t seen it before, wanted to know how I made my patterns, what plastic canvas was, how I made my patterns, etc. Soon I built up a following of stitchers who enjoyed ‘stitch and bitch’ type scenarios and wanted to work on their own projects while watching the stream.

 
A fairly surprising start, especially as there was no marketing involved at all, to begin with, apparently cross stitchers just so happen to be a video gaming lot…
But this is where suddenly I got it. It’s not about watching others, about being part of something, it’s about having that one place for cross stitchers to call home. Sure there are forums, comment sections on websites, Twitter and other social media, but there’s nothing like speaking to people real-time about the thing you enjoy.
Back in the 90s, we had AIM chat rooms, now we have a modern twist where you can see something being made in front of you, pick up on the small tricks of others…
There are reading groups, knitting circles, and now there is Twitch cross stitch.
 
I’d once again love to say thank you to all the Twitch streamers I’ve spoken to and you can find all of them over at TwitchStitch, where there are over 80 streamers and counting. However if you’re unsure where to start, I’d suggest Sirithre, kwarning, MouzlyGamez, ArmoredHearts & EmzOLV.