Amazingly not departed: Tri-chem "paint"

One of the dorkiest craft ideas ever is amazingly still around: Tri-chem. I bet your mom had a case of these little metal tubes of "paint" that she used to create spectacularly stupid dish towels with streaky drawings of owls or puppy dogs. I bet she tried to make you do Tri-chem, too, insisting that you Need a Hobby and it's a Fun Thing We Can Do Together. Or maybe that was just my mom. (I love you, Mom, but even you did this crafty stuff reluctantly.)

I get acutely uncomfortable on the rare occassions I need to visit a craft store. I think it's the smell of middle age dorkdom that wafts past the silk flowers and cheap candles. Or possibly it's that craft stores remind me of my own inadequacies as a crafter, an anxiety which can perhaps be traced to childhood Tri-chem frustration. It's all your fault, Tri-chem! 

The little metal tubes with their ball-point tips never seemed to give much paint, and what little paint you squeezed out never seemed to go on smoothly. Tri-chem was marketed as liquid embroidery; you used a metal frame to hold the material while you filled in pre-stamped pictures. I remember feeling frustrated and annoyed and not even liking the finished product, which did not resemble embroidery at all.

Check out this awesome picture of a Trichem party--like a Tupperware party, but even more lame. Trust me when I say our finished creations didn't look nearly as good as those in the picture.

Tri-chem has been rebranded for today's hip craftsters (are there really hip craftsters?): listen to the plucky little score and watch the video on their website. The paints are probably better formulated now and I'm sure the patterns are less cheesy. But I'd still probably create only streaky craftbarrassments.