Historically, cross-stitch bore a relational function. The feminine virtues, domestic responsibilities, and spousal devotion that it described attracted potential suitors, ensuring successful ‘love’ matches and marriages.

Subtracting select letterforms from found cross-stitches — a process akin to erasure poetry — transforms lengthy, pre-determined verse into short instances of speech. When sequenced, those utterances construct a conversational narrative that superimpose a contemporary love affair upon the traditional marital practices in which cross-stitch is ground, recontextualizing and asserting the validity of a dismissed craft.