Long before I started my career selling art, I got hooked on needlepointing. My mother had done a great pillow I remember so well from my childhood, but that languished for years needing to be finished. I was in awe when I watched her work on it as a child. It now resides in my guest bedroom with a like-designed pillow my sister Casey needlepointed for me as a gift.
I have completed six pillows, one belt, and one holiday stocking for my husband, and I have been part of the pair of parents that attempted and finished a gorgeous stocking for our son. All this in my short life of fifty years.
I say short because needlepoint takes time. Maybe I take a little too long to complete projects, but hey, I’m occasionally drawn to other tasks. Like growing a business. And child rearing. And going to parties.
To this day, there is no machine on the planet that can needlepoint for you. It must be done by the human hand. Needle up through the canvas and needle back down, all while pulling wool or cotton or silk behind.
So, on Wednesday, I stood in awe at all that my friend Patricia had accomplished. I was transfixed by the artistry of her paintings on canvas and the forms themselves. The birds, butterflies, divers, and fruit held me in place. She had painted many of these canvases herself and had painted an original work to make all others from in the future. To scale and to size.
I felt like I was cheating my work as I stood midday during the work week at what was feeling more and more like an art show. It seemed like my sister and I should leave the small needlepoint store and take a leisurely lunch somewhere. A walk and possibly a nap. Art was all around me, and my friend had made it all. My envy of her talent has no end.
When we entered the store, she was stitching a piece of her own in the quiet. A diver entering a pool was swaddled in her hands. I believe she was working on one of the blue tones, of which there are many. She jumped up to welcome us, but I might have been a tad rude because I wanted to brush by her to see all the canvases tacked to the wall. Of course I hugged her, but it might have been too short, as I was impatient.
For me, needlepointing is quiet handwork. Some can stitch while watching TV. I can not. Some can listen to music. I can not. Some can stitch and talk on the phone. Not me. I do, however, enjoy stitching with others, but my last several projects have been worked on in solitary silence,
My greatest memory of stitching is when my sister and my husband and my mother were all stitching projects during one year. This was over twenty years ago. I had begged my mother to finally finish the pillow she had started in the 1970s, and she capitulated. All four of us would meet at my mother’s loft and stitch in silence, breaking the silence only to talk for a bit about current events or to gossip shamelessly. Then, we would drop back off into the quiet. I am always lulled by the scratch of the wool against the canvas webbing. It is soothing and rhythmic. I remember occasionally we would ask each other for help on the serious things: when to stop with one color and begin another or how to tie off a dwindling strand in a tidy fashion.
I stood in the quiet store and was so proud of my friend, She is a true artist in that she sees a future for herself in handcraft and all that that holds. She understands paint, and thread, and patience. She is excited to figure out the business of art, and it shows in her eyes and her smile.
Needlepointing is not knitting. it is not sewing. it is not cross-stitch. It is not crochet. It is not embroidery. It is needlepoint, and it holds me in its sway.
p.s. All artwork seen here is the work of Patricia O’Dell, who is building her needlepointing business under the name Mrs. Blandings. You can find out more here. I am partial to the particular blues she used in the wings on the peacock. Check out the close up below.
p.p.s. You can see her work at KC Needlepoint on Gregory in Kansas City, Missouri.
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How extravagantly Bohemian eclectic.
