Gakked from Donna: Stitching question and conversation starter

On Aug 20, 3:53=EF=BF=BDpm, " snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com" wrote= :

I was 10 and in Girl Scouts. We did a sampler on gingham. It's around here somewhere, I think I next picked up latch hook/ punch hole with a rug. Very simple on burlap with solid colors and an initial in the middle of three panels. Did some crewel in college, we had a January term/one class with lots of free time. Picked up counted cross stitch in my twenties. Didn't do much when I was in CA. Spent much more time outside. Picked it back up about 4 years ago. Now with the SAL I'm getting into needlepoint and counted canvas work.

Nancy

" snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com" wrote in news:1e7f647b-6fb5-4ccd- snipped-for-privacy@k30g2000yqf.googlegroups.com:

My parents started teaching me various crafts when I was very young, my mother taught me to embroider, and to sew, my father taught me to knit and to crochet.

I spent a lot of time in my teens doing needlepoint, then when I was 20 my sister gave me a counted cross-stitch kit. now I do mostly cross-stitch with some Black-work, in the fall a friend is going to teach me to do Hardanger.

Keith Barber snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net

I can't remember not knowing how to knit - so I suspect quite young. I must have been 6 or so when I learned how to embroider on pillow cases. Taught myself to crochet around the age of 10. First crewel project (wool rather than cotton) was about age 12 or so. Cross stitch was much later; maybe age

Cheryl

I came from a family of people who knew how to knit, sew, crochet and even a great aunt who was an haute couturier high fashion designer in the 20's. She died very young and I never knew her, but the pictures I have of her wearing stunning suits trimmed with ermine fur, high heeled button shoes and holding a long cigarette holder make me so sad for that loss.

I don't ever remember not knowing how to sew and do cross stitch and some form of needlework and I do remember that my mother taught me how to knit when I had the measles at about 8. I think I learned to crochet around then as well. I even remember that the first thing I made was a brown/pink striped skirt for a doll.

Lucille

I started this thread not from a magazine article, but from the EGA National's yahoo!group.

And the reason I asked the question of how old were you when you started stitching is because someone posited that the EGA's focus on attracting younger stitchers skews very young. I think the replies reflect the point that most stitchers had some bit of experience very young. Then they either continued stitching from that early age, or when the opportunity presented itself years later, they didn't automatically discard the idea of needlework because of some familiarity with it. I think the EGA recognizes this and that's why the focus is on the very young.

Just in case anyone is interested, the EGA is rolling out a student membership. I was searching for the details, but can't seem to locate them. Sent an e-mail and will post my answer.

Donna in Virginia

Sorry - misread.

Hope you don't mind me lifting it for a topic here - I think it's very interesting!

linda

My mother did several forms of needlework, and particulary excelled at petit point on silk gauze. She also loved to knit those very lacy baby sets. She had no interest in or patience with teaching me anything she did, so there was no love of needlework shared there. I have talked previously about my horrible home economics teacher. I was younger by 2 years than the rest of my class, and admittedly had chubby little hands, and she spent two years ripping up everything I did in front of the class along with a dripping commentary on how inept I was. My mother, rather than help me improve, said she was "mortified" by how bad I was, since she did such lovely work. So again, no great love of needlework there.

After Home Ec I strenuously avoided anything involving a needle until I married at age 18. Faced with furnishing a home, this hippie girl sewed up all kinds of things, including a sofa (!!), and embroidered various objects including weekend shirts for my non-hippie DH. I taught myself out of books (I love you, Erica Wilson!).

So, what motivated me was the desire to create things I loved, rather than buy the very ordinary stuff in the stores, the need to save money, and the desire to differentiate myself from needlework as I had seen it done by Mum and the aforementioned Awful Home Ec teacher (I have never made a huge Victorian floral, my mother's favourite theme, or sewn anything out of huck towelling or cross stitched a gingham apron (the pinnacle of achievment for the good girls in home ec.) . I guess that involves a little bit of "I'll show them!!", but my Mum bless her never got the subtext, and continued to the last offering to show my a better way to knit (she once ripped out an off shoulder pullover I left at her house, and when I retrieved it, it had become a "more appropriate for your age" cable knit cardy. I was 40 something at the time)

Dawne

If you haven't seen it yet, try to get "House of Eliott" on DVD. I think you'd enjoy it! (I'm pretty sure Netflix has it, if you're a member.)

I'm going to look for that. It sounds like something I would like.

My mother used to talk about her very eccentric aunt and told me that she designed the first tuxedo for women, which was then knocked off by another designer and worn by Marlene Dietrich in a movie. From the lack of men in her pictures and the closeness to another lady, arms entwined, etc., we often speculated on whether or not she might have been gay.

Given the fact that my grandmother despised all men except her son and son-in-law and their very strict orthodox upbringing in their native Russia, nothing would surprise me. She threw her husband out and bought a push cart and sold fruit in the street to raise her kids. The two sisters came to the U.S. all alone when they were in their early 20's to escape the pogroms in Russia.

Loved reading this and someone has to ask, so why not me. How do you sew up a sofa?????

"Lucille" wrote .

Okay well remember this was the 70s and I was a hippie. The sofa was a huge (very huge) u-shaped tube, probably over 3 feet in diameter, and the length of your standard 3 seater sofa along the back of the U. This was the sofa back and arms. The seat was a very large cushion which filled the interior of the U, and was attached to it by the decorative (okay, tastes differ) use of nylong strapping. The whole thing was made of a red-orange fake suede and stuffed within an inch of its life, so it was very firm. You ended up sitting a couple of feet off the floor, but hey, I was a teenager so jumping up from that height was no trouble. It lasted for many years, and eventually did service as my son's bed after moving from the crib, the low height and soft surround being absolutely perfect for that. Alas, I left it with ex-DH when I left him. I believe it did one long distance move with him to act as DS's bed for visits--another advantage was it was comparatively easy to move around. To accomplish this, I managed to sew a napped fabric, use those big curved upholstery needles, and several other tasks which if I had paid attention in Home Ec I would have known were "advanced techniques" and so beyond my capabilities. The courage of youth??You can accomplish great things when you don't know what you aren't supposed to be able to do!!

Dawne

You sound just like my mother. Many moons ago my really expensive, beautiful, brown silk sectional couch developed a hole in the very corner little L that wrapped between the back of the couch and the very low arm. There was no way new fabric would match to fix just the one love seat sized pillow and really no way I could afford to have the whole thing reupholstered so my mother said I'm going to fix it.

Innocent me said what the hell do you know about upholtery. Her answer, which I now know was perfect, was what does a professional use to do it, said she. He uses two hands and a needle. What can we lose. She proceeded to cut a piece out of the back which was against the wall and cut a patch big enough to cover the entire little square that had the hole. She fixed it with one seam, that on the dark chocolate brown didn't stand out too much and was easily covered with a throw pillow. She then sewed a piece of muslin over the hole in the back and stood back to admire her work.

I used the couch like that for a very long time and no one ever knew it was repaired.

Amazing what a lot of ingenuity and an even bigger amount of nerve can accomplish.

I just didn't want any looking for an article in Needlearts and not find it...

Donna in Virginia

Ah. They are calling it a youth membership. Will be open to children under 17 or 17 and under?

Cost - $15.

They have not finished finalizing the details of this plan yet. Which is why I didn't find anything on the website.

Donna in Virginia

I remember learning to hem, do basic hand sewing when I was about 6. I then started doing embroidery at around age 8, more or less. Started with DM giving me some stamped emoroidery to do while she was working on a tablecloth. I wanted to "help" - so I suspect she wisely got me my own piece to work on, while she did hers. My DA did great NP, and had done petit point covers for her dining room chairs - it was kind of inspiring - I remember her working on these for a couple of years when I was about 10-11. Similarly I remember my other DA doing NP, as well as my cousin but I wasn't really interested then. Kept it up until about age 20, put it away for some time and picked back up about 15 years later. I did however a fair amount of embroidery - shirts, jeans, jackets, monograms on hankies. Picking back up stitching really came from my then MIL (the truly difficult now exMIL) doing XS, and I thought it would be fun. My DM's best friend had also taken it up

- so well, it seemed like a good thing to do, that we could all sort of share. But that was just a jumping into point WRT XS.

Garment sewing, been doing steadily since about age 8 when we moved to FL, and my mom started. Her aunt sewed tons of cloths for my mom's cousins, and got my DM started, and I wanted to do it too! Sewed steadily, regularly until about the early 90's. Stopped for a few years, and then picked back up with quilting in the late 90's, then back to garments, etc..

My Paternal DGM and mom were fabulous knitters and crocheters - I didn't really get it, though I could muddle my way through crocheting - say around age 16. But when I decided to learn to knit as an adult about 7 years ago turned out that I had muscle memory and have to knit European style. Who knew.

Good point about the crewel kits. I've done/will be doing some workshops with kits for kids of cool bracelets that are dyed Aida with some XS & a couple of other stitches, and some NP kits. Doing an NP class as a mother/daughter activity for the synagogue sisterhood - seems to be a fun way to get them involved. I think not only small, inexpensive, but also things that are kind of fun or cute - like little boxes, or the friendship bracelets, etc.

Trite and cutesy. While some of it is cute, I find it so much of the same - but OTOH, I've done my handful of L-K pieces, too.

It is an interesting topic, that so many of us picked up early. My mother was quite fond of telling me that I'm really a very traditional woman - because I do things like stitching and cooking. It led to many arguments of her not understanding the rest of my life not falling into the "traditional" path - that you could love the traditional female arts, but that didn't mean I wanted the rest of the more traditional lifestyle. Not a right or wrong thing - just made for some lengthy and frustrating discussions.

Ellice

s familiar with it

After reading all these responses, could it be as simple as that, when we reach our teens, we need to "rebel" and broaden our horizons, as teens are wont to do,or, are just so busy that something has to be put aside? Not to mention the fickleness of those years. By the time designers figure out what they like (if that's even possible!) and get something designed and published, the fad has changed.

I'd hazard a guess that most of us did much less needlework during our teen years and then picked it up again once we were in "settling down" mode. I did a fair amount of stamped embroidery when I was young (probably started around 6 or 8 yo) but don't really remember doing much during my teen years. I was in college when I started knitting, crocheting and crewel. I didn't discover counted stitching until a few years later and married, when I saw something I wanted for our bedroom.

Maybe it's just the nature of the beast... Maybe we just teach the little ones when we have *some* control over them, so the basics are there when they mature. The crux of that, though, is getting more adults involved so they can then expose the youngsters.

Joan

I stitched/knitted/crocheted A LOT through high school and college, but did much less when I got out of school and had to earn a living. And learn to live with the now DH ;)

In fact several of those uncompleted projects still live in my hoard. One is a scrap blanket I must of started in HS with all sorts of yarns knitted in stockinette and a huge granny square piece (also blanket sized now) of pieces of crewel yarn leftovers. I really should finish both pieces.....

Cheryl

I had just this conversation yesterday - commenting on how in your teens and college years (and often the early years after you have kids), you don't have time/interest/money to stitch. You need to be exposed young from someone (scouts, parent, grandparent, etc.), then later you pick it up again. I know that was true of me!

Alas, Girl Scouts has moved to this new "leadership" emphasis which is going to leave little room for learning all the stuff you *used* to have the chance to learn.

And Joan's point about taking time to catch up to the fad is well taken - it does take time to get the production up and going. It's also a chicken and the egg question though - companies produce what sells. What sells is what's available. If I go in, am interetested in taking something up and it's not there (steampunk for example), I may not come back. By the time it is available, I've moved on or resigned myself to not being able to find it.

linda

When I was younger, there were times when stitching was important and times it wasn't. It didn't even occur to me to make stitching as a gift at a younger age (college) - don't know why, it just didn't. Furthermore, not all of us had access to a kit or thrift store - I went to college in a very, very small town (Mount Vernon, IA - population 3,628 - and probably less when I was there). And frankly, when money was so tight it was sometimes a choice between tampons and course books, even a couple of skeins and cheap frame would have been too much.

As to the time factor, you are right - I listen to a book or watch TV and stitch. But there are those who can't do it - they can't concentrate well enough. And as you said, they make time for what's important. Maybe watching Susie practice is more important to them. Or seeing a movie. Or whatever.