Cross stitch pattern of the quote “The Emerald City is not actually emerald”. This one was requested by one of my Patrons who is a big fan of the original Oz book series. Download the PDF here: The Emerald City Pattern 

Grid Size:65W x 59H
Design Area:4.50″ x 4.07″ (63 x 57 stitches)
Colors: 4

My Patron, NinjaGoemon, is helping to build a town just for ghosts, a ghost town if you will. Every ghost wants a nice place to haunt. You can keep them comfortable with familiar architecture, but the most important part is to make sure they have a good community of other ghosts to keep them company. Who knew ghosts could get lonely?

Apparently there is a lot more to Oz than I first thought. There’s a whole series of books that you can read for free on the Library of Congress website. It’s kind of funny. I’ve been reading The Phantom Tollbooth and I read Alice in Wonderland a few years ago. It seems like there’s a whole genre of children’s fiction that I missed out on of child-on-an-acid-trip stories. Honestly, these books are right up my alley. They’re all so creative and spontaneous. I suppose the point of stories like this wasn’t really to tell a coherent narrative, but to keep a child reading a few more sentences.

As adults, we often overlook the fact that not everyone can read so effortlessly. It’s a skill that requires a lot of concentration early on and your reading speed can differ greatly even among people of the same age. I have a theory that the reason stories like this were so popular was because the scenes and characters changing so often would keep kids engaged even if what exactly they were reading didn’t make a lot of sense.

I had an experience like this when I was learning some Spanish. I watched a cooking video and every time I didn’t know a word, I would stop and look it up. I watched that video five times looking for vocabulary words and pronunciation, but even now I don’t think I could tell you what the recipe was, just that it included dientes de ajo which translates to garlic teeth. I think that’s the same kind of thing that happens when you’re first learning to read. You’re so focused on how the letters go together and the strange words that the story isn’t all that important.

But in the end you do remember having fun, and that’s what matters. That’s what makes a reader for life.