olderrose

 

Some projects just get buried and never seem to get done. This is one that is a miracle that it is finally going to be framed. Somehow a piece of the very first needlework that I did survived almost eighty years and countless moves.  When I found it years ago I wrapped it in tissue and kept it with my most prescious keepsakes. Meaning always to frame it.  Whenever it surfaced, I never had a frame.  And when I had a frame, I didn't know where the needlework was.

 

In the 1940s, my mother and her sister each divorced their husband at the same time. They bought an old yellow convertible and took off for California to celebrate their freedom.   They were both still in their 20s, and there were many young servicemen returning from the war and landing in California. The only damper was that my mother and her sister each had young daughter tagging along.   I was almost 8 at the time.     

To keep me bus and quiet, my mother bought an embroidery kit.   It   included  seven stamped kitchen towels, an embroidery hoop, thread, and even needles.  There was a towel stamped for each day of the week.  As I look at the front and back of it now, I’m quite proud of this first effort of a very young child.

As my mother hoped, it did indeed keep me busy and quiet, and it was the first of many such embroidery kits.  I immediately loved it and it was the beginning of a lifelong passion for anything using a needle.   And she did indeed meet a handsome young serviceman, and they were married almost 50 years before he died.   He was the best stepfather a young girl could get.