Dirty Dancing Inspired ‘I Carried a Watermelon’ Cross Stitch Pattern

Dirty Dancing Inspired Cross Stitch

I first saw Dirty Dancing as a teenager and immediately fell in love with it. I loved the character of Baby, I loved the music, all of it. But the feminist aspects of the story sailed straight over my head.

I watched the movie and played the soundtrack over and over, still oblivious and—truth be told—a little embarrassed that I liked a “chick flick” so much.

It wasn’t until much later that something clicked. A couple of years ago, after watching the movie again, I Googled “feminism in Dirty Dancing” and came across two excellent posts, one on The Guardian and one on XOJane.

Not for the first or last time, as I read I found myself nodding along and feeling a sense of relief that someone else had been able put into words what I hadn’t been able to put my finger on.

So, if you would like to read all about feminism in Dirty Dancing, click on the links above. If you would like to stitch yourself a cute reminder of the film, stay right here.

I love the awkward “I carried a watermelon” line from Baby. I feel like that’s the moment when you first fall in love with her character. So as I watched the movie for the third time over a long weekend (don’t judge me, it was -20C outside!) I decided I needed an “I carried a watermelon” cross stitch in my home.

I did some Googling to see if this had been done before, and while I did find some patterns for sale, all featured watermelon slices—and I knew I definitely wanted a whole watermelon to better evoke the scene in the movie.

So I came up with this pattern, using Craft Design Online’s design grid. If you, too, love this movie and would like a little reminder of it in your home, go for it. The finished product fits very nicely in a 4×4 inch frame.

‘I Carried a Watermelon’ Cross Stitch Pattern

You’ll need…

• Embroidery thread in dark green, light green and black
• Embroidery hoop
• Aida cloth
• Cross stitch needle
• Scissors
• 4×4 inch frame

Notes

There are some limitations to the program I used to create the pattern, and so you’ll notice the dot above the I and the full stop at the end are missing — both are french knots. The As and Es in the pattern aren’t quite right either. Below is how I actually did them. Otherwise, it’s a very straightforward little pattern. Enjoy!