I made my first needle point project when I was 12. It was a doorstop with a white kitten on a maroon background. I worked on it during my first (and only!) summer at camp between 6th and 7th grade. Good thing I had it. I did NOT like camp.
Before that, I think, I’d done some embroidery. I remember samplers and stamped pillowcases, soon after my mother and I moved to Indiana. So I was probably between the ages of 8 and 10. Good grief! That’s 60 years of needlework!
I often say that if it can be done with a needle I’ve probably done it. I’ve experimented with crochet, quilting, tatting and lace-making, as well as needlepoint. During the quarantine and cancer years from early 2020 to 2021, I crocheted four afghans, completed five counted cross-stitch projects, and finally finished the last three figures of my Southwestern needlepoint Nativity set. That project had stalled for almost 10 years! But I finish every project I start. Eventually. Even though one Christmas ornament waited over 20 years.
My mother did needlepoint too. I don’t remember her doing much of anything else. She worked on many pillows and Christmas stockings, and finished most of them herself. On an old Singer cabinet-style sewing machine. Probably almost as old as mine, which I think is about to turn 40!
Needlepoint has changed a lot. Used to be that women would buy a canvas with the design already worked in the middle, and the background left of the purchaser. Invariably, this involved just one stitch – ye olde Continental stitch, sometimes called Basketweave if worked on the diagonal. This is the only stitch my mother ever learned. Nowadays, needlepoint is properly called “canvas embroidery.” There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of different stitches! And stitchers can choose from fibers in every color and texture imaginable. Wool, silk, cotton, blends, metallics, ribbon, beads, you name it, if it can be worked with a needle, some stitcher somewhere has used it.
Can you tell that needlepoint, i.e. canvas embroidery, is my favorite?
I worked two large needlepoint pillows in college at Northwestern. I found a needlework store in northwest Evanston, right across the street from the NU football stadium. It’s still there! Vacationing in California, New Mexico, Arizona and Hawaii, I found more needlework stores. In Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Scottsdale and Sedona I was able to find projects that indulged my extensive “southwestern” phase, creating many designs that featured Native American figures and motifs.
And as my skills grew, and I learned more and more stitches and used more and more different fibers, my mother would always say, “But that’s not needlepoint.”
Most of the stores I’ve frequented in Chicago have closed. Currently, I’m back at the Needle’s Excellency in Evanston, taking an Advanced Class every other Monday. I’m finishing up my second project there, consulting with owner/designer Amrita (surname) on stitches and fibers and coming up with my own ideas when I get impatient between classes. I have virtually nothing in common with most of the women there. They are usually creating gifts for sons, daughters, and grandchildren – ornaments, personalized memorabilia, prayer shawl bags, and other projects I’ve never seen the like of anywhere else. It’s an amazing place.
What we do have in common is a love for needlepoint. For creation. For beauty.
I have made and unmade the decision to leave the classes at least three times so far. Last week I had just about decided to finish my project at the end of the current session and say good-bye. Except then I went to class and fell in love all over again.
Framing stores close, and supplies are harder and harder to find. My walls are full of framed projects, and the last thing I need is more pillows. Just ask my husband Ernie, who throws them all on the floor. Even my Michigan house walls are full. And still I keep on stitchin’.
What do I find in stitching that I don’t find anywhere else? Beauty? Harmony? Maybe. Peace and stillness? I doubt it. Not with the TV on 24/7 in the family room and my ancient cat Dally screeching at me and climbing on my chest and shoulders while I work.
All I know is that it MATTERS. Making matters.
I think back to the darkest days of my cancer treatment in 2020, when they found the pulmonary embola that could have ended my life if not caught in time. When I was sent first to the ER, then ICU, and eventually to a hospital room filled with baffled doctors. Poor Ernie. He kept making round trips from the condo to the hospital, trying to bring me everything I needed.
The thing I wanted most was my then-current project. A reproduction of Klimt’s “The Kiss,” worked in glowing wools, silks, metallic and beads. One nurse saw it sticking out of one of my tote bags and gasped, “What is that?!” I told her it was needlepoint, and she said, “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Interestingly, there was a print reproduction of that same Klimt artwork in the hallway outside the radiation treatment rooms where I would eventually receive radiation therapy. It made me feel hopeful.
In the darkest dark, beauty. Amidst the pain and fear, creation. Making MATTERS. Do I really need to understand anything else?
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