Stitching Memories

A member of CyberStitchers posted about finding a photo of her 9th birthday, where embroidery supplies were in evidence as a gift. It got me thinking more about my own stitching time line again.

On the last few trips home, my mom and I have talked about knitting. Unlike most mothers and daughters, I was the one who got her back into knitting. The memory about shopping for yarn my first year at Westminster, led to another one about stitching. I remembered that I was buying needlepoint and embroidery kits for a few years before I started knitting. I would walk to the needlepoint shop in Sandy Springs, because it was so close to my middle school. The association with school makes it is easy to pinpoint it in time.

I also remember our big excursions out to Lee Wards in Marietta...it was always an ordeal to get there before I could drive. It was right about then that I learned basket weave, because I was so put out with the gaps in coverage of continental stitch. I can even remember the exact kit I was working on when my friend showed me a better way.

That means I was fourteen when I first bought skeins of tapestry wool at Lee Wards instead of a kit! I still have some things with Lee Wards price tags. Scary, huh? To still have supplies from so long ago...

I also remember that I discovered my first Maggie Lane book in 1984 at the Sandy Spring Public Library. I was in love with her stuff! In terms of canvas work, I stitched her designs almost exclusively throughout most of college. I still have one uncompleted project that is my oldest UFO. Maybe I will finish it one day.

Anyway, hope I have not bored you to tears, because it was actually fun for me to develop a more concrete timeline for something I feel like I have done forever.