To Sew a Fine
Seam
Reprinted from Needlewords November 1983, one of
the newsprint editions.
I have an elegant soul. Most
needleworkers do. Sometimes we disguise it in an
upholstery of 5 to 10 pounds of extra weight, bad
hair days, and maybe run-down heels on our shoes.
No matter, the elegant soul is there.
My particular elegant soul is willowy,
shiny-haired, clothed in silk, sitting tall and
straight on a pillow, sewing a fine seam. This
duchess of a soul is most in control at the start
of a cross stitch project when I envision an
embroidery so meticulous, so exquisite, it could be
the product of a medieval convent.
And so I begin a special gift for a
special person. It must then survive finger prints,
pets, peanut butter smears, car pools, TV addiction
and telephone interruptions. When finished, it is
not the magnificent creation I envisioned, and yet
to me it still trails a few clouds of glory.
"Always keep in mind some image of magnificence" is
my motto.
My first glimpse of the needlework
field as an elegant and desirable career was in
Biarritz many years ago. It was off-season, cold
and rainy. My husband and I and our eight-year-old
daughter were staying at an inn where an enormous
copper pot of tulips was in the lobby next to a
parrot that said, "Ca va" to one and all. Our
bedrooms had casement windows that overlooked the
sea with a view of a statue out in the water. With
all these wonders, I was under an
enchantment.
One afternoon we were walking down a
steep street of the town just after a shower so
that the rain-washed tile roofs gleamed at us. A
small shop called "Prince of Gaul" caught my eye.
The shop consisted of one room of a soft ivory
color lined with walls of drawers, all ivory. On a
stand was a girl's smocked dress. It had shoulder
straps that tied and was made of a heavy cotton.
The band of English smocking showed Red Riding Hood
and the wolf.
The front window of the shop was wide
and glass from floor to ceiling. In the window was
a serene woman with a queenly bearing, sitting
sewing. On one side of her was a pot of geraniums,
on the other side a white cat. Entering the shop we
learned that all the drawers were full of dresses
in different sizes but the same style and fabric.
They cost $21 and that was more than I could
afford. (It was a long time ago, when most
eight-year-old's dresses cost five or six dollars.)
I came away, though, with an impression of the
needlework business that has given me trouble ever
since. Many shop owners have similar false
illusions; a dream of sitting and stitching with
friends, surrounded by a collection of splendid
supplies. Wrong! but a common delusion.
Is there anywhere an elegant
needlewoman whose inner soul and outer life are
more synonymous? Maybe queens. Royalty, even
present day royalty, embraces needlework. Queen
Mary of England made huge needlepoint rugs that
were auctioned for charity. Princess Grace of
Monaco loved needlepoint also. The Queen Mother,
Ingrid, of Denmark is a magnificent stitcher in
several media, as are her daughters. Queen
Margrethe, the reigning queen of Denmark, designs
artistic and innovative cross stitch. Surely,
servants and ladies-in-waiting make it easier to
sit on a pillow and sew a fine seam.
And yet there was a day, eyewitnessed
by my husband, when the royal Bentley drove up to
the Danish Handcraft Guild workshop in Copenhagen.
Sitting on the right was the chauffeur, driving the
car was the Queen! The Queen got out and the
chauffeur slid over, ready to park the car. Her
Majesty opened the trunk and removed her embroidery
(a chasuble embroidered in metallic thread). She
then ran up five flights of stairs to deliver the
chasuble to be finished into a wearable garment. No
ladies in waiting, no one to act as buffer between
her elegant soul and real life.
Could that be an insight? Does the
image of magnificence exist precisely because of
the commonplace details of daily life? Do fine
stitches counterbalance a sink full of dished,
weeds in flower beds? Is it everyday mundane life
that requires an inner life of the spirit,
expressed in the best needlework one can do?
If I always sat in a window with a cat
and a geranium, would I eventually kick the cat and
uproot the flower? I will never have the chance to
find out, but I savor those fleeting moments when
my elegant soul is at peace and in charge.
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