Cross stitch pattern of Clay from Animal Crossing New Horizons. This is a special Will o’ Wisp pattern for my patron, Anastasia. Download the PDF here: Clay Pattern

Grid Size:62W x 100H
Design Area:4.29″ x 7.00″ (60 x 98 stitches)
Colors: 10

My Patron, Anastasia, is a space slime living on Saturn’s rings. They come down to Earth every so often for adventures. Earth is a great vacation spot because there’s always new kinds of food being invented every year. Yeah, space slimes don’t need to eat food, but having fun is what vacations are all about.

So Clay is a villager that I wasn’t familiar with since he’s a new one. I had some trouble with his shirt since the complex pattern is hard to simplify without it looking like boobs. I swear the developers knew when they designed him.

Animal Crossing is one of those games that gets me thinking about real world correlations. Earth Day was last month and it made me wonder how people go about planting trees. I don’t own any land and it’s a good bet that you don’t either. If I plant a tree somewhere nearby, I would be littering on someone else’s property. I can’t stop the management company from chopping down my sapling. I have no say in the matter. Even if I join a group and get permission to plant trees in an area, the land is still owned by someone who could chop down all the trees and sell the lumber at any moment.

You don’t own the island you are renovating in Animal Crossing. It is owned by Nook Inc. Some people say that Nook is a nice guy, but it doesn’t matter how saintly Tom Nook is. His position of power over you is the problem. When Tom dies Timmy and Tommy might not be as kind.

Under less scrupulous leadership, you’re island would be much scarier. Bells are an island exclusive currency so if you ever did want to leave, your money would be useless. Nook Inc owns your phone and can remotely access it. They own the one airport that could get you off the island. They monitor you so they can give you Nook Miles when you do something right, altering your behavior with rewards.

Tom Nook chooses you as a representative, but the other villagers don’t get a say. Nook will buy anything off of you, but only for bells, and there’s no way for you to know how bells convert to off island money. You can shape the island however you want, place all the flowers, plant all the trees, but in the end Nook Inc owns all of it.

You cannot buy the island, no matter how many bells you earn.