This Fuck Cancer Cross Stitch Pattern in Hebrew is now available in my Etsy shop!
A good friend went through pancreatic cancer treatment (successfully!), and while there are a lot of other really nice “fuck cancer” patterns, I wanted something more subtle as our friends have lots of very young grandchildren. My friend is of Jewish heritage, so I thought a project in Hebrew would do the trick. This way, when the grandkids ask what the project reads, our friends can say something like “it’s a Hebrew benediction” with a smile on their faces. As I don’t know Hebrew, I did some research on the web and found a Reddit thread from 2014 that discussed options.
I stitched this in the purple ribbon color for pancreatic cancer, and of course the colors can be modified for any ribbon color. I used ThreadworX 1128 on the word “cancer” above with ThreadworX 11582 for the remaining text below and the border. The lighter purple I used to minimize the word “cancer” while the darker purple color emphasizes the sentiment. The border pattern is a repeating stylized insolent finger that I augmented with some backstitching in the light purple thread.
Going forward, I would like to make a series of these in different languages. I have the German version already under way and the French and Italian expressions in hand. I do realize that a straight translation of “Fuck Cancer” many times will not be correct. The Hebrew version is more like “cancer, go fuck yourself”, while the French version is “merde au cancer”, something like “shit to cancer”. Some languages’ swearing expressions tend more to scatological themes. Then there are different levels of rudeness in swearing as well. Just for example, in English you could say “screw you, cancer” vs. “fuck cancer”.
After I did some work with Google Translate, I talked to a German friend of ours who is over 80. I asked him if “Scheiß auf Krebs” was correct, to which he replied “you can’t say that!” He suggested the German version of “grab that cancer by the throat and kick it in the butt.” The phrase he offered was very cute, but I needed something a little more succinct. On the web, I found a discussion of just this topic, and “Fick dich, Krebs” is what I’ve gone with in German.
I’d love to have this expression in as many languages as possible. If you’re fluent in some international cursing, can you help me with this “fuck cancer” cross stitch project? Remember these need to be brief and to the point, recognizing that it may not be a straight translation. Please send your ideas to me at catherine@ancoracrafts.com, and I’ll gladly take a look.