In the beginning ...

I started moderating a Stitching Question of the Day thread on the 123 message board recently.  One of the questions I plan to post soon is "When did you first start stitching?"  And that got me thinking about my own answer.  Usually, I trace my stitching "birth" back to my early twenties when my mother gave me a hand-painted needlepoint canvas and some paternayan yarn as a gift.  The gift didn't really reference my own tastes though, since the image was of a Confederate flag.  It was meant to please my new husband, who was a Civil War buff and Confederate re-enactor.  I never did finish that piece.  But I did enjoy the process and soon sought out pieces more to my taste.  From needlepoint, I moved on to crewel and then onto cross-stitch and other surface embroidery.

But upon consideration, I realize my stitching started at a much earlier age, probably at 10.  My best friend Nora and I were tormenting her Nana with questions while she was embroidering a tablecloth under a shade tree one fine summer afternoon.  In an effort to get us to leave her alone, she gave us each a small tea towel with stamped cross-stitch patterns, a little bit of floss and some basic instruction.  We promptly went to sit on my stoop and spent the rest of the afternoon stitching away.  I don't remember Nora doing anymore stitching but I liked it enough to convince my mother to let me walk all the way down Church Avenue past Utica Avenue [the unpassable boundary for her children] to go to the five and dime store that sold stamped cross stitch items and Coats and Clark embroidery floss.   What I do remember, though, was being so proud that my mother allowed me to walk the five long blocks along Church Avenue all by myself to make my own very grown up purchase.  Of course, I was allowed to walk a much further distance along the same street in the opposite direction but that was familiar territory: a walk to St. Catherine of Genoa school and church.  For some reason my mother deemed that a much safer walk and a better neighborhood than the length of Church Avenue with all the shops and crowds.  To hear her speak, you'd think crossing Utica Avenue was the equivalent of entering a cage of man-eating tigers.

I can't remember what I bought, a tea towel or a set of napkins or some such small thing, with my birthday money.  I think I had all of $3 to spend ... it went a lot farther in those long ago days more than half a century ago.  I must have spent a good thirty minutes looking at all the selections because I got in trouble when I got home, for being gone too long and worrying my mother.  My purchase was confiscated, to the accompaniment of many sobs and tears.  My mother, with her usual dramatic flair, tossed it in the trash.  And so ended my enthusiasm for embroidery for a decade.