Farewell, Marilyn

The stitching world had a great loss earlier this week. On Tuesday, August 14, cross stitch designer Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum passed away.

Marilyn was the hand behind the design company Told in A Garden, with designs under that name, as well as Lavender & Lace and Butternut Road. She was by far the most successful cross stitch designer of the late 1980’s through the early 2000’s. Between the three design lines, she produced a total of 128 designs, not including the free Christmas angel designs she offered for 20 years.

A little over 10 years ago, Marilyn moved to the Rochester, NY area, which is where I live. I had the wonderful experience of not just meeting this lovely and talented soul, but also to work with her and visit her beautiful home on several occasions. I was lucky enough to be the model stitcher for three of her designs (Winter Sampler and the two Button Box Babies). I also stitched trial bits of Angel of the Morning and Secret Santa, as Marilyn decided between possible color combinations. It was an inspiring time that allowed me to get a glimpse of her amazingly creative mind at work.

Over the years, I’ve stitched other designs of Marilyn’s. The first was Angel of Hope, which went to a teenaged cousin battling Hodgkin’s lymphoma (who is doing very well nearly 20 years later). Nantucket Rose (above) and Celtic Banner (below) both hang in my dining room. And I still have Angel of the Sea half-completed.

Marilyn and I fell out of touch in recent years, but I’ll always remember her generosity of spirit, her determination to make her creations the best they could be, and her stunning perennial garden. Farewell, my friend. May your family and loved ones find comfort in happy memories.

Another shop’s demise

Earlier this year, I received a letter from one of the two local needlework shops. The letter explained that the shop was closing, and detailed the merchandise sale prices during the summer.

It’s always depressing to hear of another shop closing, but this is the first in my area. While this is not my most-frequented shop, it carried a different selection of items than the larger shop in town.

Fortunately, the pair that run the shop, Frame Of Mind, do have another venture: Woolen Thread Designs. Their designs are lovely items, some of which are made entirely of wool felt, and some combine wool felt with cross stitch. They’re a lot of fun. I believe the owners will be continuing their work on the design company, but have decided to retire from the shop.

Next Saturday is closing day.

Today, MIL and I (with E in stroller!) went shopping.

I spent a little over $60, and came home with this:

One of the items that this shop carried that isn’t available anywhere else locally is Anchor floss and some pearl cotton. Since it won’t be available for me to look through there, I thought it best that I take some home with me. Besides, they’re trying to empty out the shop, so I couldn’t refuse to help them.

In case you were wondering, that pile is on the seat of my stitching chair, and consists of 375 different colors of floss (at 14.5 cents each), and 31 balls of pearl cotton, sizes 8 and 12 (at 4 for $1.00).

All and all, a great deal, right?

Then why do I think I’d prefer that the shop stay in business instead of practically giving their inventory away? :-(

Medici wool is available again!

Several years ago, DMC discontinued their line of Medici wool thread. If you've looked for it since, you may have had to scour several shops to access their dwindling supplies. But here's good news for Medici wool fans!

This past weekend, Denise at Threadneedle Street in Washington state sent out an announcement that another company is now making Medici available again. According to this notice, the new thread is "virtually indistinguishable" from the old, and that a vast majority of the previously-available colors (and 13 new colors) are available.

The picture shows a few skeins of DMC Medici next to the same colors in the new version.  For all of the details, see the announcement on Threadneedle Street's website.

Faith

Since May 2007, embroidery enthusiasts from around the world have been watching (via blog, of course!) the development of an embroidered jacket modeled after two examples from the 17th century. Along the way, the jacket acquired a name: "Faith", for the tremendous journey of faith it took for this vision to come to fruition.

Some details to consider:

• The project involved almost 260 people, from stitchers (some experienced, some first-timers), to lace-makers, textile manufacturers, and coordinators.
• Several 17th-century threads, such as Gilt Sylke Twist, were recreated for this project and are now in production again.
• When Plimoth Plantation canceled the exhibit for which the jacket was being developed, the volunteer efforts continued, with the belief that the jacket would be completed and exhibited somewhere. (Hence the name "Faith"!)
  

Today is the day. Faith is being unveiled tonight at Plimoth Plantation, and on the Embroiderers' Story blog. She even made the front page of the Boston Globe's metro section.

If you're visiting the blog, start with this post, and check out the posts that follow it, too, for lots of pictures of this magnificent accomplishment. Be sure to click on the pictures to make them bigger. Some can be clicked twice to make them REALLY big. If the pictures on the blog whet your appetite, you may want to visit Winterthur Museum in Delaware sometime between spring 2010 and early 2012, where Faith will be on exhibit for all to see.

Congratulations to Tricia Wilson-Nguyen, who was the driving force behind the project, and to all those who had the wonderful experience of contributing to such an amazing piece of embroidery history.

Can you help restore a piece of history?

On Tuesday, December 3, Christie's auction house sold a piece of an antique jacket, seen above. While advertised as the sleeve of a jacket, this is actually the jacket's back. If you visit Christie's site, you can zoom in on a picture of this exquisite embroidery.

Unfortunately, it appears that somebody has intentionally disassembled this jacket and is selling the pieces individually to maximize profit. According to Tricia Wilson-Nguyen, a collector interested in re-assembling this piece of history purchased the front of the jacket in 2005, but was outbid at Tuesday's auction.

If you know the person who won this auction, please ask them to contact Tricia.

You can read Tricia's blog posts about this jacket here and here.