My Needlepoint Journey

My journey into the world of needlepoint began as a little girl of seven years old. It was watching my Mother, Nana, and my older sister, Christine, sitting around the living room chit-chatting about the latest soap opera, “Guiding Light,” working away on colorful needlepoint tapestries.

It looked like fun to create pictures with the needle. My mother patiently taught me my first stitch, the “continental.” It wasn’t easy, and I got frustrated, but eventually, I got the hang of it.

I spent hours of my childhood and teenage years sitting in front of the TV watching classic movies with the stars of Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Elizabeth Taylor, and Doris Day entertaining me as I stitched away on my needle points. I was probably the only teenager in school who would sit on the cold locker room floor during free periods or before an exam and stitch my floral needlepoint tapestries.

Needlepoint gave me something to do with my hands and kept my mind distracted. For someone who has anxiety, like myself, needlepoint was very therapeutic. It kept my hands busy and my thoughts on following the pattern.

My interest was flowers; I loved the colors and creating different playing with the hues of the needlepoint threads of the roses, hibiscus, and peonies. One after one, I would turn them into pillows, and they’d be lined up on my bed like trophies. As I got older, my interests started to turn to animals. As I was a young mom, I wanted to create needlepoint pillows that my kids would enjoy.

I had needlepointed a lion for my son and a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel pillow for my daughter when they were little. They still have these pillows to this day. I wanted to branch out from the florals. I pretty much tried every subject: people, fish, birds. I turned a lot of my canvases into pillows, but eventually, they went into framed artwork.

This Jaguar piece was a gift for my Mother. she loved vibrant colors and Jaguars. I worked diligently to finish these in a timely fashion. It took about two years to complete this colorful Jaguars for my mom's 70th birthday. After she passed away, I have the framed needlepoint hanging in my home. I can remember where I was with each stitch. There is something about needlepoint, there is a connection to each color, each section of the canvas. It's a work of art and of memories.

Finally, I decided to try my hand at something more challenging. I was walking in a needlepoint store one day and fell madly in love with a 2 1/2-foot Santa’s canvas.

Santa took eight years to complete! With life challenges and sheer boredom at times, it took that long. It was also the first needlepoint that I varied away from my continental stitch and started going into many more challenging stitches. Santa was created with “Brick Stitch,” “Basketweave Stitch,” “Diagonal Mosaic Needlepoint Stitch,” and his beard was “French Knots.” Learning those stitches added some time for completing Santa.

When my boredom hit, I switched to other Christmas and Halloween designs. I loved Needlepoint, but with life, my interest varied to other things — watercoloring, writing, and illustrating, to name a few.

I will go back to needlepoint one day because I actually have another Santa Claus that matches this guy, but in a green robe with other wildlife. I need to complete him. Santa sits waiting in the closet for me, in a very large bag.

Maybe during one day, I’ll pick him up, and I’ll do some work, but then again, I won’t be able to write, so it is a bit of a challenge. I do have to find a better balance. I’m not quite ready to put him up online for everyone to see.

Have any of you done needlepoint? Do you enjoy needlepoint or other stitching?

**************

This was originally posted on Medium.