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Tuesday 13 December 2011

There Is Love In Every Stitch!

Nothing is quite as special as something decorated with fine handwork.  It takes skill and experience and hours and hours of work to tat, embroider, cross stitch, candlewick, etc. on things we want to make beautiful or personalized.

The delicate stitches say that this is something that is not made by a machine.  It's made by one human to enhance the lives of other humans.  The stitches say that someone cared enough to sit patiently and work to create something lovely.

Cross stitch starts with a pattern, a hoop, needles and thread. ~

  
You count and stitch, count and stitch until the pattern comes to life on the fabric.  Thousands of stitches later, you know you will have this ~


This is work that cannot be hurried.  It is precise.  One miscount and the pattern starts to go off.  Sure you get faster at it with practice, but the hand will only move so fast and there is a limit to how much you can accomplish.

What, then, do you do when you have made cross stitch Christmas stockings for your first two grandchildren and you suddenly have four more grandchildren that desperately need to feel loved and important in the family?

You start stitching!  You stitch in every spare minute you have.  You stitch for thirteen hours straight one Sunday.  You stitch into the wee, small hours when you have to go to work in the morning.  You cling to your determination and your belief in miracles.

And your belief is rewarded!  Your sister comes and takes one of the stockings to do herself.  You didn't know your dear friend, Liz, could do cross stitch.  "Are you kidding?", she says.  "I'm Greek. We have to do all that stuff as little girls and do it well, too!"  She's a busy, single mom but she takes one stocking to do.  

There is only one month to get these finished and it is such a busy time of year for all of us!  But, now it seems much more possible with three of us forming an old fashioned sewing circle.  

Then, it was just one day before Christmas Eve and all three of us were in a panic!  We got together and stitched like mad!  We made decisions about what was extraneous to the pattern and could be deleted.  We gave it everything we had to give and then some!  

By, 10 pm the last stitch was in place and my sister (the fastest seamstress of us all) had sewn them into stockings. 

At noon on Christmas Eve the first thing the kids saw, when they walked through their new grandma's door, were four stockings with their names across the top.

This is the second Christmas they have hung beside their brother's stockings. ~ 


Every stitch says something about family.  It says sisters always are there when you need them.  Every stitch says something about friends.  It says good friends care about your concerns and will do whatever they can to help. Every stitch talks about the value in learning a skill and being able to do something extraordinary.  (Thank heavens for Greek moms!)

I hope these stitches, also, always say, "Grandma loves you!  You are all loved and important in our family!"

Thank you, Lynn and Liz, from the bottom of my heart!!!


I'm sharing this with ~




Jenny Matlock

Alphabe-Thursday

8 comments:

  1. Bless your sister and friend for their kindness and generosity. That is really the Christmas spirit. If I were to ever attempt that I would need to start three years in advance lol. Thanks for visiting, I'm honored to follow you.

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  2. You are such a good, good person Maureen. You've given them all a memory they'll cherish for the rest of their lives and one day maybe they'll read this blog of yours and realize the love was bigger than even they thought! xo

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  3. You are most welcome and I would do it again in a heartbeat - they are wonderful grandchildren and are definitely worth the effort!
    Lynn

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  4. That was such a nice story, this Greek friend of yours sounds so nice, she must be a big part of your life, LOL. I would do it again in a heart beat, family means everything, friends mean everything. I loved the blog, I laughed and sighed, and then said aaahhh so nice. I love your stories, keep up the good work I enjoy following your life, even if I am in it sometime. Love ya.

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  5. Oh Fabulous! I am a cross stitch fan and do you know until sometime recently I had no clue about how to do it? Believe that.

    This is wonderful.

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  6. Maureen...check out my blog today because I've nominated you for the Liebster Award...yes, I accepted this one...Just have to nominate 5 others you love with 200 followers or less...easy peasy! xo

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  7. What a beautiful talent!

    My sister was good at this art form! Something I don't have the patience for at all!

    Thank you for sharing such a sweet story of the true Christmas spirit.

    And thank you for linking to Alphabe-Thursday! Welcome!

    I hope you link again and if you do you will get more visitors if you link to the URL of the post and not the main blog. To do that, just click on the title of your post and paste that into the linky. In this case the link would be: http://www.itsallconnected.ca/2011/12/there-is-love-in-every-stitch.html

    Hope to see you again!

    A+

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  8. Sorry Jenny, I thought I had linked to the post. I guess I got a little sloppy. Eeeks! ~ Maureen

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