NEEDLEWORK by MARY JANE MORRISON

Needlework and text by Mary Jane Morrison, photos by Reina Lopez

As a child I simply could not sit still – I always had to be doing something, anything…  I learned to knit squares when I was 7 years old.  I made a few simple things, but didn’t do much with it for several years.  As a teenager, I wanted to start knitting more complicated things (like a sweater), but yarn was too expensive and my family couldn’t afford it.  Then I discovered a pattern for knitted lace and found that it could be done with inexpensive crochet cotton – for a number of years all family members received gifts of lace knit doilies!   As a bonus, finishing off the lace knitting pieces required me to learn how to crochet, a useful skill as well.

(Note: There is a display of lace knitting hanging in the 7^th floor hallway of the Manor through the month of August.)

But lace knitting is too complex to mix with studying, so in college and medical school I turned to needlepoint as a way of relaxing and worked many forms of that.  The violin, mandolin, and tea plantation at left are examples.    A few years later I joined the Army with a first assignment in Germany.  There I was introduced to counted cross-stitch, a much more portable craft.   I picked up a few kits (ref. couple in round frame), but was much too busy working and traveling in Europe to do much crafting.   However, 2½ years into my assignment at Landstuhl, back in Connecticut my mother became critically ill and I was hastily reassigned back to the States to be with her (late 1979).  Counted cross-stitch was the perfect way to spend quality bedside time with her without going stir-crazy – it was small, compact and you could put down the piece immediately when necessary and go back to it later without losing your place – a definite advantage.  And, that’s what I’ve mostly done since then.

The rest of the pictures (at right and below) are of counted-cross stitch works I’ve done over the years.  The size of the work depends on the number of squares per inch in the material used.  The more squares, the tighter and smaller the work.  Most were done on 14 sq/inch material.  The 2 pieces (Autumn Scene and Woodsy Waterfall) which hang opposite my apartment door (#701) are worked on 16 sq/inch material.  Interestingly, I first worked both of these pieces (as wedding gifts for favorite nephews back in CT) on 14 sq/inch material – and liked them so much that, during Covid I decided to use up some 16 sq/inch material I had on hand and make a set for me so that I too could enjoy them.  These are the largest pieces I’ve ever done (each with 50+ different colors and 16 pages of detailed charts – each page taking 3-4 weeks to complete).