Needlepointing

I recently finished a needlepoint canvas – a Hopi Indian girl that was gifted to me by my friend, Adrienne. Her mother, a needlepointer, had left her a pile of canvases and threads. Adrienne thought the Hopi girl canvas from her mother’s stash would be a great gift for my granddaughter, Ada, and I agreed.

Then, my friend and I discovered The Needlepointer in Everett. What a fabulous store with such helpful and knowledgeable staff. Adrienne helped me choose the threads for the canvas – and it was her idea to use beads – “It’s such a native Indian thing to do.” The tiny wobbly beads were a challenge, requiring an extra slim needle that rendered the thread practically impossible to poke through its microscopic eye. But with advice from the store staff and persistence, I got the hang of it.

I began to needlepoint in my twenties. I learned it from my mother who always had some kind of handwork project going, whether knitting, crocheting, macraméing or needlepointing. I tried the other crafts, but felt most at home with needlepointing – despite my mother’s quip that it was hülye le föl le föl – idiot down up down up – work. It helped that I was fascinated with the intricate gorgeous medieval tapestries that I ogled in the Cluny Museum in Paris. I still have a dream of stitching a complex project like that some day.

I stopped doing any handwork for thirty years while raising my family and living life. Adrienne pulled me back in with her yen to take up where her mother had left off. I unearthed a canvas of poppies I’d begun to work on thirty years ago and finished stitching it as a gift for my daughter, Stephanie.

On my first outing to The Needlepointer I found a beach canvas and completed it in no time. On my most recent trip to the store for additional thread for the Hopi girl canvas, I fell in love with another beach scene – this one in vibrant oranges, purples, aquas and greens. Gorgeous! I had to have it.

I can spend hours stitching, looking like an alien wearing magnifying goggles over my reading glasses. I love stitching with friends. I’ve also gotten into listening to audio books while I work. I’ve “read” Brideshead Revisited narrated by Jeremy Irons – brilliant – and To Kill a Mockingbird with Sissy Spacek – marvelous. I’ve also listened to countless Michael Connelly crime novels, Maisie Dobbs mystery novels, on and on.

After two or three hours at the needle, I see double. The night I finished the Hopi Girl was nail biting as I barely had enough thread to complete the background. But I couldn’t stop with that canvas – I had to begin my vibrant beach scene. I had to keep at it . . . until bleary eyed, I finally gave it a rest at 2 a.m.

Most every day, I can’t wait to get back to the stitching. Can’t wait!