✏️Amanda’s Blog Post: “A Stitch in Time” (Dec 7 2021)

Needlepoint

a stitch in time saves nine
PROVERB
if you sort out a problem immediately it may save a lot of extra work later.

I’m in the process of completing a needlepoint project. It’s ambitious. There are a heck of a lot of stitches. My grandmother was an avid needlepointer. We had lots of pillows of various designs and we still have a few of them at our house. I remember one fateful day when my mother had decided to wash all of granny’s needlepoints. She pulled the pillow stuffers out and threw them in the laundry on a “cold/cold” cycle, or so she thought.

One of Granny’s creations along with my pile of yarn.   photo: A. Eichstaedt

My father was not a plumber, he was a poet. He had taken on some home improvement activity that involved unhooking the washer and then hooking the hoses back up. Well, he mistakenly swapped the hot and cold. The pillows came out a bit worse for wear, since they were fabricated of mostly wool yarn. Sorry Granny!

My intention is to have this made into a pillow. I discussed this with Mara Nelson from Covergirls about a year ago (when I was well into my project). As you can see, I’m not making zippy progress on my stitchery. However, I have decided to knock this thing out by the end of this year. Let’s close a crappy year out with a bang! I’m determined to do it! I have done other needlepoint projects, but that was when I was kid, and they were all very small.

One of the issues I have with this work is that when you are doing it, you can pretty much only “listen” to something. You can’t watch something else, because you have to keep an eye on those little holes in the canvas (and believe you me, mine ain’t perfect). I’ve been diving deep into Tyler Mahan Coe’s “Cocaine and Rhinestones” podcast. It’s great if you like that sort of thing, and I do. Tyler encourages listeners who dig what he’s doing to share the news. Done! BTW, I also listen to KWMR while stitching.

Other than not following the directions closely and doing a large swath of the design in slightly the wrong color, and then having to procure more yarn for the other areas, I’m doing ok. And you know what? It looks great! I’ll be sure to post a photo when I’m done and the pillow has been created.

And I agree that if I had thoroughly read the instructions, I would not be in the bind of having to get even MORE yarn, but that is ok. It’s a bit more like a painting the way I’m doing it. So, a stitch in time can save nine, but there is also some wiggle room for creativity.

Thank you all for reading and for your support of KWMR!

Amanda Eichstaedt
KWMR Station Manager and Executive Director