Hi, friends!
Today, I would like to talk about something that feels near and dear to my heart: how embroidery allows us to connect with our past in the present. In previous blogs, I have discussed the history and tradition of embroidery in Reclaiming the Needle. This craft dates back centuries and it is still alive and well today. That is something that I find beautiful. This is my experience of how the art of embroidery has connected me to previous generations.
How It Started
In my story, I mention how I very much stumbled into the craft of embroidery. I was bored, I was antsy, and needed something to do with my hands. Ultimately, what gave me the idea was finding some olds bins and boxes of supplies that belonged to my mom and my grandma. If it weren’t for the supplies already being available to me, I might have never gotten the idea.
For me, this was the first moment that I can remember feeling connected to older generations through this craft. All of the supplies I found were still perfectly usable, even though two generations before me had used them. The thought of that really impacted me and made me feel so connected to my grandma and my mom.
After I began sharing my art publicly, people began donating supplies to me from their relatives. Hoops, boxes of thread, scissors–you name it. It was always a similar story too: “This has just been sitting in a box,” “I’m so glad someone can use this now.” I have always accepted these things because I love knowing that they once belonged to someone who loved this craft. That feeling of connectivity felt so good and so warm in my chest that I could never (and still can’t) refuse inheriting these things.
The Turning Point
On a more personal note, the event that really shaped and solidified the beauty of this type of connection for me was when my grandma passed. My mom and aunt had gone through her belongings and found some gems. Amongst jewelry and trinkets, there were tons of embroidered handkerchiefs completed by my grandma, my great aunts, my great-grandma–so many women in my life before me whose work has been preserved. That I now get to possess and cherish. My mom had also found a vintage embroidery sampler from the Every Woman’s Family Circle Magazine from 1960.
My grandma had clipped it out of the magazine, ordered the supplies, but never made the sampler. It had just been sitting, waiting for someone to complete it. And that person was me.
Grandma B’s Sampler
I sat with this sampler for a few months after the funeral, but the next summer I felt compelled to finish it. My grandma’s birthday was coming up on August 14 and I just couldn’t get the thought out of my head that I wanted to finish this piece for her for her birthday. She would have been turning 95 that year.
So, I pulled out the supplies and began. I ironed the fabric, collected my embroidery floss, and started stitching. Now, this type of sampler requires cross-stitching, which is a form of embroidery I do not spend a lot of time doing. But, once I got the hang of it, it went pretty quick!
With every stitch, I felt so connected to my Grandma B. I would think of her ordering this sampler and what she might have liked about it. I imagined where she would have hung it in her kitchen and how long she would have worked on it. Most importantly, I thought about how my mom and my aunt keep her spirit alive today.
The Takeaway
To say the process of making this piece was therapeutic is only scratching the surface. It reminded me why I love embroidery: it connects us to past generations. All these women in my life who came before me had the same craft, used the same materials, but we each put our own spin on it. I think that’s beautiful!
So, let this be a motivation to you to see if there are unfinished projects from the people in your life. I promise the experience of reflection, connection, and love that you feel with each stitch is so worth it!
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