Bittersweet happy dance

May blessings rain down on you

Cheryl

Thank you for doing this. It restores my faith in the goodness of people.

Lucille

What a lovely thing to do. So glad it was obviously so much appreciated.

Pat

You couldn't have picked a better piece to express true sentiment for a boy.

This was such a lovely thing for you to do, and brave. It's always impossible to know how to help, share in someone's grief, but clearly you hit the right note.

{{Liz}} for doing something so special, and putting your work and thought into it. I'm sure your bittersweet happy dance will keep you, and them warm.

Ellice

Not to hijack this thread, but I kind of have a query for the group, and a comment. Directly about this - stitching a memory, memorial thing for family we've lost.

As some of you know - due to my irregular babbling - DH lost his parents (dad when he was in college, mom about 13 years ago), and I lost my parents (more unexpectedly) 12 years ago, and all our grandparents before that. I never knew his folks (I prefer to believe he's the true apple from the tree, and that my 2 crazy DSILs are, well, the slight aberration), and of course he never met mine - though I know that they would adore him (he and my DF are very similar in the jocks with brains who are really big teddy bears kind of way). Question - you ask - where's she going with this?

His mom did some XS - and I found a stamped XS of the "now I lay me down to sleep" prayer, which has to have been done at least 50, 55 years ago. It's a bit stained (smoke getting in the framing) but I'm going to clean it and re-stretch, clean the frame and put in one of our guest rooms. DH is happy about that - I think it rotated from kid to kid and ended with him - thought it might just have been made for him. And it reminds him of his mom, whom he took care of after his DF passed (don't get me started on the SILs not helping out). I have an old XS tablecloth that my DM must have done in 1949

- as a newlywed. I use it (when I find it again) as a topper on a little decorative table.

Oh, the question. I've been thinking - would it be weird to do some needlework piece with some sentiment for our parents? I know we think of them, and this topic has come up recently, as during the Jewish High Holidays there is a memorial service as part of the Day of Atonement. (During which I end up sitting weepily by myself, though the grandma in front of me turned around to pat my hand alot). Recently, I've affiliated with a different synagogue - and they're so genuinely open and warm - it's refreshing. So, this whole kind of thought process started going.

Anyone with ideas about wierdness in doing a sentimental thing for people you've never known? OR what would be a good piece? I'm not really a gushy, saccharine person - DUH. I did think maybe to do some kind of garden-ish sampler, or one of the Indigo Rose type ones, and then maybe write in something about our families. But the engineer brain isn't exceptionally poetic - even if the art side works.

Okay - sorry for babbling - but Liz's kind effort made me think about this.

ellice

Sounds like a lovely idea, Ellice, and certainly no more wierd than researching the family tree! I`ve been doing mine and managing to obtain photos of ancestors I`be never met. Wishing I COULD have met some of them, too, like my maternal grandparents, both of whom had pretty awful lives from what I`ve discovered, poor things.

My grandfather was a tanner and caught an awful skin disease from the hides. At the same time, grandmother had been taken to hospital with tuberculosis. Grandfather cut his own throat at the ripe old age of 31. The details in the inquest report are pretty horrendous but the saddest thing is that if only telephones had been available to the ordinary working man in those days, he might have been able to contact his mother at the other end of the country, instead of waiting for a letter in reply to his own letter to his mother, asking for help. It`s so very tragic.

You go ahead with it - it would be a lovely tribute, and will probably be much valued by your own descendants if they ever want to research their family tree.

Pat

Oh, that's *wonderful*, Liz! Thanks for sharing.

((((((Liz))))))

Joan

A couple years back, Herrschners had a kit with a floral heart enclosing "When someone you love becomes a memory, that memory becomes a treasure".

I'm stitching that exact quote right now -- for a woman DH works with whose husband died recently -- though not Herrschner's version. The one I'm working from is a chart I bought in Solvang, CA, that was made up by a woman in memory of her young son, and the proceeds of the sale of the charts was to go to the Lompoc (a nearby town) library.

I like the quote. It's a lovely sentiment.

I don't think it matters if someone passed last week or last century. If you think about them and want to do a memorial piece - do it. If others think it's weird, that's their problem. I made an original blackwork sampler for one of the lines of my family tree. My father thought it weird that I went back all the way to the 1300's, others thought is cool and something that could be passed down/on to someone else after I am gone.

I did it for me. If they don't like it, so what. It's not part of their house anyway.

You must have had some distinguished ancestory in order to trace your lineage back to the fourteenth century - any royal (Plantagenet or Tudor) connections?

Hi Liz,

I am moved by your story, and will never ever underestimate the importance of spending time stitching, knitting, or painting - as one day, it may heal someone else's sorrow or mean more than 'just decoration'! What a generous and lovely gesture you made to that mother

- and how actions speak so much louder than words!!

Thanks Liz. Take care, Narjas

Liz from Humbug wrote:

One of my lines is traced to about 1250 or so. I don't have the records but we know my father's family name to 1580.

Cheryl

Thanks for the encouragement. My cousin that emigrated to Australia 30 years ago has been trying to do some family research. Bizarrely, I seem to be the one that remembers stories from the grandmothers. Her elder sister remembers a bit from the greats... We have the Ellis Island name change issue, and my paternal grandfather had the family change last name when he was in grammar school as he got tired of being last in line (originally with a Z, now an S).

Truly tragic. Poor man - that must've been so awful for your grandmother, and the whole family.

Thanks again. Of course, part of the issue is our being childless - though with the 4 god children (all 1 family, and the only way we can explain the relationship), and the nieces & nephews (though more distant than the godchildredn) not sure who'd care. Wee do have the discussion with the godkids especially that we realize we're financially irresponsible, have no parents to care for, no children to see educated & wed, and have been to grad school, and have long-term care insurance (and good equity in the house) - hence in some future the picture is of us alone, drooling in buckets, and trying not to drool on the needlework! It's our explanation when queried about the seats on the glass for an NHL team, the theatre subscription at Ken Center, and the like......

But, I do think I'm going to work on figuring some dsign that would suit. I don't know if I want to do a traditional type sampler or maybe a spot sampler. Will see.

ellice

That's a really nice sentiment. I'm thinking actually of taking something from some Jewish liturgy - for a change I was paying attention reading some meditations, etc. When I figure out something - I'll post it. We actually had a short poem read at our wedding at the start of the service to remember our families, and I think I might use that. When I find it....

ellice

How nice of you. And I love the idea of the chart proceeds going to a good use.

Agreed.

ellice

Thanks for putting it so plainly. You're right - about the weird issue - but I was basically asking a perspective question to some extent.

Doing a blackwork sampler sounds like an amazing and ambitious project - going back so far. Count me in the cool thinking side!

Very true - of course that's part of the doing needlework lesson - WRT gifting, or what others may think, appreciate. I think this will be bubbling around in some part of my brain for a while til I'm ready to sketch up some kind of design. Or see something just right.

ellice

I did this for DB & SIL when they lost their baby girl in her 8th month of pregnancy. I stitched a Precious Moments design of an angel on a cloud dropping heart "mail" over the edge of a cloud and added "Our precious angel" and her name and date. They have it hanging next to the baby pictures of their boys.

I don't think it's weird at all and they obviously didn't think so, either. I say go for it.

Joan

Sounds like you did the perfect thing. What a hard time that must have been for them, and your family.

Thanks - I've been thinking about it. Lately several nice quotes, etc have been rambling around my noggin, so ...I'll get to it eventually.

BTW - Summer Garden bands 1 & 2 are done - but I think I'm going to redo the lazy daisies in band 2 - they look kind of weird - it's hard to tell her intent from the chart, and I'm going to shift them to point up. I didn't do the little bit of trellis on the greenery of band 1 - I like to leave some of that loose, white stuff for the end, beads, too. Also - since I'm using Splendor in place of Mori - I played abit with how many strands of silk to use. The tree trunk - in Waterlilies has 3 - it looked flimsy done with 2. The gazebo - I thought 3 would look better, but then it looked heavy, so frogged it, and redid with 2 strands of Splendor. And I did the over 1 sections with 1 strand. I think I'll finally set up my .mac place where I can post some shots - then you guys can dog me on the process - and give valuable criticism.....

ellice