Midweek: fifty years ago

 

In January, 1975, I was home in Northbrook between Alpha Gamma Delta leadership consultant assignments. I posed for this photo with my entire my needlework output.

Here are the details.

* The green cross-stitch quilt was the first one I made. It's a Bucilla kit, double-bed sized.  I made it in 1973-74 when I was in graduate school (embroidery first semester, hand-quilting second semester).  It was my bedspread until I got married.  I got a lot of good use out of both the quilt and the degree.  The quilt is still in pretty good condition, considering that it's been washed quite a few times.

* My mother and her brother Bob hand-pieced the sixteen-patches in the 1930's. Mother said Bob's stitches were neater because he was a year older. Someone (Mother?) set them with blue sheeting. The summer of 1974 I took the top without Mother's knowledge and embellished the blocks with feather-stitching (pastel DMC floss) and hand-quilted a wreath and heart in the blue blocks.  I had NO IDEA what I was doing, so it is very inauthentic.  I presented it to my parents at graduation. Mother loved it. After she passed away I sent it to Bob, who was terminally ill. The report was that he smiled when he saw it.  I think one of Bob's children has it. 

* The crewel pillows above my left shoulder and under my right arm were kits.  My Alpha Gam sister Paula and I sent Kleenex or Puffs proofs-of-purchase to get them. (Circa 1972.)

* By 1974 needlepoint was all the rage. It was perfect to take on my Alpha Gam travels.
--The squirrel pillow was a finished-center ("Berlin work") piece. I first saw it at a department store in Ohio, and then again at a department store in North Carolina. It was on sale and I bought it.  (The squirrel is the Alpha Gam mascot.)
-- The red/buff roses picture (small square on the left in the picture) was also finished-center. (Alpha Gam flowers are red and buff roses).
-- The oval-framed picture is the one I don't recall at all.
-- The little railroad cars were gifts to my dad. They were Sunset kits.
-- The lemons-in-a-basket pillow was a gift to my sister, whose bedroom was citrus yellow, orange, and green.
-- The yellow-green bargello pillow was an Elsa Williams kit, made for my mother. (There was a living room chair that color.)
-- The purple-and-white pillow was made from a pattern in The Art of Needlegraph , a book I bought on my travels. I did all the counting by eye--no marking on the canvas.  This was a wedding gift for my Alpha Gam pledge daughter Janet whose favorite color was purple. She and her husband Grant still live in southeastern Missouri.  (I've haven't heard from them for years.) 

After the leadership consultant year, when I began my librarianship career,  I continued to do a lot of needlepoint.
I also sewed most of my clothes.  

 

I found that the supplies for stitchery were relatively inexpensive  but framing or other finishing can be really expensive.  Piping for pillows was a challenge.

I made pillows for wedding gifts and then pillows for baby gifts.  The baby's birthdate is coded in the plaid pattern.  For example, Whitney was born 4/15/79.  Starting in the center: four rows horizontally and vertically; then fifteen; then one, nine, seven, nine.  

(Quilts would have been a lot quicker to make.  I made a quilt for Whitney's wedding and for her older son.)  

 I still have needlework supplies.  

And books. 


In the early 1990's I found out that patchwork could be sewn by machine and I've never looked back!  

The last big cross stitch I made in 2000.  

Thanks for letting me reminisce!

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