Threads that Bind

There’s a thread that binds generations of women in my family. It is the skill and appreciation for fine needle work. My mother learned from her mother and grandmother. I learned from my mother and grandmother. My daughters are learning from me.

I fondly remember the afternoon when Grandma McClintock took the time to trace a picture of a cardinal from one of my favorite coloring books onto a square of white muslin cloth using a piece of carbon paper she had saved from a money order. I was nine at the time and my fingers were clumsy with the needle and thread, but she patiently showed me how to embroider around the bird using an outline stitch.

When I was getting ready to leave for college Grandma McClintock gave me a cotton blouse finely stitched years before on a treadle machine by her mother for one of my aunts. It was made of pink linen fabric with delegate white lace trimming a small rounded collar. The front was decorated with narrow pleats on either side with a row of tiny buttons down the middle.

I remember the dresses Mama fashioned on her electric Singer for my sister and I to wear in a cousin’s wedding. She also made my Girls’ Glee Club dress in high school.

This past week, I worked feverishly to finish a quilt for my daughter’s eighteenth birthday. The quilt top was pieced by machine, but I did all the quilting by hand. It took over two years to finish.

Running through quilts, dresses, embroidery work . . . the thread draws women in my family together. Time, touch and thoughts of an individual are stitched into every item. Stitchers remember being patiently taught.