Needle-made art

The necklace Nina Thomas wears is something she sewed by hand.

Lucy Aiken sewed her own necklace plus earrings to match.

Joyce Houck, meanwhile, sewed a number of the framed images of birds and flowers that hang in her Forest home.

“It’s not your grandmother’s needlepoint,” says Houck.

Houck and her two friends from Rustburg were seated one recent Wednesday morning, at Houck’s dining room table, on chairs covered with the first pieces of needlepoint Houck attempted. They were having coffee and coffee cake after going over pieces of needlepoint and embroidery that will be exhibited at Bedford’s Bower Center for the Arts.

The exhibit will feature as many as 105 pieces representing every kind of needlework. An opening reception for the show, which runs through Sept. 30, is scheduled for 3 to 5 p.m. Aug. 30.

The pieces come from the needles of the Blue Ridge Chapter of the Embroiders’ Guild of America and the Seven Hills Chapter of the American Needlepoint Guild. Thomas is president of the Seven Hills Chapter of the American Needlepoint Guild and second vice president of the Embroiders’ Guild of America; Houck and Aiken are past officers of the groups.

The three are hard-pressed to come up with a recent similar exhibit locally.

“(Needlepoint/embroidery) is an art rather than a craft,” says Aiken.

“Museums are full of samplers,” says Thomas.

These days, with threads available of which the three never would have dreamed, the art has broadened from samplers to just about anything.

Similarly, definitions of what constitutes needlepoint and what constitutes embroidery are changing.

Generally speaking, any hand work done with a needle is considered embroidery, while needlepoint has been defined as hand work done with a needle on a countable background material, such as canvas.

“Many of the embroidery techniques now applied to canvas or countable linen can be classified as needlepoint,” says “A Book of Recipes, Embroidery and Needlepoint,” a booklet created by the two guild chapters (Thomas says those who stitch also tend to be avid cooks; hence, the recipes).

Needlework has been around as long as clothing. Embroidery has been found in Egyptian tombs, on ancient Maori costumes, and in medieval church vestments, according to James R. Krasznia’s “A Brief History of Needlework.”

While we tend to associate needlework with women, it was a craft originally practiced by men who spent years mastering it.
Since the Industrial Revolution and the introduction of machine stitching, such needlecraft is no longer practiced universally, at least not in industrialized countries.

But handmade needlecraft pieces can still be found in modern-day life; think kneelers in churches.

The Central Virginia women seem to get some of the same satisfaction needlecraft has likely always provided its practitioners.

Smaller groups from the two guild chapters sometimes get together to sew. They spend the time together, working on something for which they share a passion and sharing knowledge.

“We’re a close group,” says Houck. “We take the camaraderie very seriously.”

The work is “very challenging,” says Thomas. Some projects can take can months, even years, to complete.

At the same time, the concentration required to create a work of art one stitch at a time can have a zen-like effect. The world outside melts away.

“It’s very relaxing,” Thomas says.