In my living room, over my burgundy couch, hangs a burgundy-edged
needlepoint I embroidered. It’s based on a medieval Cluny Tapestry. Decorators
tell you not to buy a picture to match the furniture. And I didn’t. I matched
the furniture to the border of the needlepoint.
The needlepoint is based on a series of tapestries, each
devoted to one of the five senses, and a sixth “to my one true desire,” a
betrothed damsel in front of tent. The one I worked on is called “Sight.” Each
stitch stands pert and accurately angled, at attention, doing its individual
job to contribute to the artful effect of the royal tableau. A myriad of color
embellishes the needlepoint mesh, worked ten stitches per inch. Given the size
of the piece 45 x 35 inches, there are about 158,000 stitches that create the
illusion of the original tapestry. In the center is a rather serious-looking maiden,
flanked on one side by a grinning lion and on the other by a bemused unicorn,
admiring himself in a mirror held by the young lady. There is a symbolic tree beside
each animal, plus a pole and banner. It is all centered on a deep blue island,
filled with mille-fleurs and miniature animals, that floats upon a field of red
carnelian and more mille-fleurs work, framed in a border of deep burgundy.
I wasn’t an experienced needlepointer when I started the
project. I had learned to needlepoint because a good friend of the family, Ceil
Rush, tried to teach my mother. Mom was recuperating from a breast cancer
operation—her second. Ceil thought it would help her pass the time, and given
the mastectomy, a two inch embroidery needle would be easier to deploy than the
long knitting needles my mother usually wielded. I was in and out of the room,
serving them tea and cookies, just hanging about, and watching the lesson. A
week later, my mother decided this endeavor was repetitive and boring. Since I
had absorbed enough of the lesson, I offered to finish the piece. It was my
mother’s taste—a French provincial scene, bewigged couple, with him bowing to
her and her serving tea. I hated the picture. Ugh. But doing it was a gift to
my mother. In addition, most handwork keeps me happy. Over the next few years I
worked on a few small needlepoint canvases that matched my own taste.
In 1975, I quit a job I hated to focus on my master’s degree
in medieval literature. Within two weeks, Mom was rushed to the hospital for
emergency surgery. It was cancer again, now
metastasized. As she recuperated, I
told her about my wanting to buy this huge needlepoint I had seen, but thought
was too big a project, both money-wise and size-wise. Maybe I should buy a
small one. “Absolutely, not,” she said. “If you love this picture buy it and
make something worthwhile. Don’t waste time on little projects that are a bunch
of cute nothings.” I consulted with Ceil,
the needlepoint expert-in-chief. Per her instructions, I purchased boxes and
boxes of DMC threads, to assure that I had consistent dye lots. Then I tested
the number of strands I needed for coverage
– a full strand plus two threads separated
from another strand. I worked up little color patches on the side to establish
a color key. Prep work done, I took a deep breath and was ready to place the
first stitches. Panic set in. There in front of me were one thousand five
hundred square inches of mesh.
The needlepoint maven visited again, and she provided a
battle plan for me. “Don’t think about the whole tapestry,” she advised. “Just think
about each section as its own project.” I worked the tree on the right first. Then
in the full light of summer I worked on the dark navy island, which was almost
impossible to stitch under indoor light. Then I worked on the other tree. I
worked on it in hospital waiting rooms during my mother’s doctors’
appointments, radiation, and chemo. I
worked on it talking to Mom as she lay weak and in pain in her bed at home. I
worked on it to calm and distract myself. The piece was starting to progress. . . My
mother died in the middle of the light blue skirt of the young noblewoman’s dress.
After that I worked on it inconsistently. Most of my energy went to completing my
thesis: 101 pages on “The Use of Color in the Canterbury Tales.” I was in my personal
medieval period, and it took me time to enter the Renaissance. Five years
later, the piece was complete. I finished the petit-point image in the mirror
while on the floor of my living room, moving to follow the beam of late afternoon
sunlight in the room, so I could work the needle through the challengingly
small holes of the mesh. My sister called during this last stitching, and was
very offended when I told her I couldn’t talk and would call her back. She
thought she was more important than a needlepoint. I did not understand the
significance of the last stitches either. I just knew I was driven to finish.
As I dated and initialed the piece, I placed a period on a pivotal paragraph in
my life.
M.Hoffer
March 2020
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