My grandmother was very special. Soft spoken, tall, with silvery hair in a Gibson girl knot on top of her head, she dressed in the style of Queen Victoria with a black taffeta toque, soft black leather Mary Jane shoes that buttoned, a lace fichu. At sixty she moved slowly, aged by a romantic life that included her girlhood presentation at the Court of Saint James in England; hardships and adventures and the births of nine children in American. Grandmother had the kind of presence that caused small boys with no manners to automatically rise when she entered a room. To my knowledge, she never held a needle, nevertheless she is there at the beginning of my counted cross stitch story. As in so many other things, she influenced my later life profoundly; the big part of my life that is cross stitch. 

Grandmother made long visits to each of her grown nine children in a casual sort of rotation. One day when I was eight or nine years old, I came home from school to find Grandmother, Mother, and five friends of Mother's gathered around a gift that had just been presented to my grandmother who was the Sunday School teacher of that particular group. The gift was a cross stitch sampler and it completely bowled me over. In it there was a woman seated in a wing chair by a fireside, a tiny cat playing with yarn, candlesticks and framed portraits above the mantle. I was enchanted! Below was an original poem and my grandmother's name, Florence Westby-Gibson. Below the poem were the names of the class members including my mother's. So neat, so small, so authoritative. I was amazed, charmed, bemused. This sampler was my burning bush, my lightning bolt. I considered it almost beyond human capability in its perfection and certainly beyond the capability of my nine-year-old self who could never win at jacks, jump double dutch or keep from losing gloves and hats.

Almost a quarter of a century passed. On two or three occasions, I saw counted cross stitch pieces but was always informed by the maker that it was impossible to obtain the necessary supplies, although by then I was eager to learn. Once on a visit to my home town I was given a box of charts taken from old magazines; old Anne Orr designs and the like. Grandmother's sampler had long been my cherished possession, received after her death.

Then, at last--bless all magazines--Woman's Day offered a cross stitch kit in the magazine. It was a sampler that said, "Let Us Give Thanks" and I swear on the Victoria and Albert Museum, it cost only a dollar! I ordered it, embroidered it and finally understood the ease and simplicity of counted cross stitch. Now I was desperate for supplies. No shops carried more than a few drawers of DMC floss and the other brands available had few colors. There seemed to be no suitable fabric. Finally, in a catalog, I found a fabric listed as evenweave hardanger. I did not know what hardanger was but I ordered it on the strength of the evenweave.

I gloried in my new found skill. It provided me with gifts, wonderful personal gifts. It embellished my children's clothing and that of my young nieces. When I could not find a design I needed, I bravely drew it myself. I love words and I stitched special poems and selections of words for different rooms in our house. 

A place of honor still goes to Grandmother's sampler in whatever home we live in. Quite faded now, it hangs over my kitchen desk telling its sweet verse and naming the Sunday School members. Nowadays I have such a time remembering names, names I truly want to and should remember. Nevertheless, Myrtle Nelson, Elsie Waterhouse, Grace Austin, Vi Steck, Ethel Smith, Florence Bostwick, these names I recall and see a face to go with each name. I am reminded of my nine-year-old self and my overwhelmed reaction to counted cross stitch. When I ran the shop in Pawleys in the seventies, I often saw the same stunned reaction in customers' faces. "What is it? I love it!" What fun, then to show its ease and simplicity, to open the door to a new world.