#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--GUEST AUTHOR LEA WAIT ON ANTIQUE EMBROIDERY

USA Today bestselling author Lea Wait lives in Maine, where she writes the (so far) 5-book Mainely Needlepoint mystery series and the 8-book Shadows Antique Print series, as well as historical novels for young people. Learn more about Lea and her books at her website where you can find links to a free prequels of her books.

Old Embroidery That Tells Stories

Growing up as a fourth generation antique dealer, and then as a dealer myself for 35+ years, I sometimes saw embroideries that had been treasured not only as decorative works of art, but as illustrations of family stories.

For example, some samplers didn’t just have a verse and several alphabets. Some preserved family records. The stitchers embroidered names of their family on trees or more often (considering the 10-18 children I’ve seen listed), included names and birth (and sometimes death) dates and bordered the names with embroidered flowers.

Mourning embroideries usually picture a tomb shaded by one or more weeping willows, and several people (usually identifiable as family members) grieving next to the tomb, which is engraved with one or more names.

But not all “story” embroideries were sad. Patchwork memory quilts were sometimes given to new mothers, new brides, or young women heading west. Organized by friends of the recipient, the patches were often from garments that had been worn by the stitcher, who also embroidered the patch before the quilt was assembled, often at a quilting bee. Some simple quilts had patches embroidered with the names of those giving it, perhaps women in a church group, or young women who’d gone to school together.

(As a side note, today, at least in Maine, a popular library fundraiser is to cut quilt pieces and send them to authors, who sign and return them. The names are then embroidered over by volunteers, the quilt assembled, and then auctioned off.)

One of the most beautiful quilts I’ve ever seen was pieced with velvets and silks, and each piece was embroidered by a different person. The skill of the embroiderers varied considerably. I’d guess that some were very young, while others were very accomplished. Although we’ll never know what the exact message of the quilt was, an educated guess was that it was given to a new bride who was leaving the town where she grew up – probably a seaport.

 

The embroideries of the patches appeared to be memories that the recipient could take with her. A clipper ship. Strawberries. Holly. A pine tree. A dog. A cat. A house. Daffodils. Queen Anne’s Lace. A cardinal. A chickadee. A music note.

  

The quilt pictured has embroidery on the patches … and the embroidery linking the patches is designed to look like seaweed. (Collecting and preserving seaweed was a popular Victorian pastime for young women. But that’s another subject!)

Another memory quilt I’ve seen was made from the clothing of a union soldier who’d served in the Civil War, and the flag he’d carried. Embroideries on it included his dates of service, the battles he’d fought in, his unit, and the states he’d traveled to. It was pieced and embroidered by his wife, who wrote an explanation for the patches, which was saved with the quilt.

Unfortunately, not all quilts have legends.

But perhaps, the stories we made up about them are almost as interesting.

Tightening the Threads, A Mainely Needlepoint Mystery

I

n the coastal town of Haven Harbor, blood runs thicker than water—and just as freely…

Antique dealer Sarah Byrne has never unspooled the truth about her past to anyone—not even friend and fellow Mainely Needlepointer Angie Curtis. But the enigmatic Aussie finally has the one thing she’s searched for all her life—family. And now she and long-lost half-brother, Ted Lawrence, a wealthy old artist and gallery owner in town, are ready to reveal their secret connection…

Ted’s adult children are suspicious of their newfound aunt Sarah—especially after Ted, in declining health, announces plans to leave her his museum-worthy heirloom paintings. So when Ted is poisoned to death during a lobster bake, everyone assumes she’s guilty. If Sarah and Angie can’t track down the real murderer in time, Sarah’s bound to learn how delicate—and deadly—family dynamics can truly be…

Buy Links

paperback

ebook 

#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--GUEST AUTHOR LEA WAIT

Today we’re happy to have back Maine author Lea Wait who writes the Mainely Needlepoint Mysteries and the Shadows Antique Print Mysteries, as well as nineteenth century Maine-set historical novels for young people. Learn more about Lea and her books at her website.

American School Girl Samplers

“Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern; it will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that – one stitch taken patiently and the pattern will come out all right, like embroidery.”-- Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table

A number of readers of my Mainely Needlepoint mystery series have asked me about the quotations I put at the beginning of each chapter. Some, like the one above, are from books printed in the nineteenth century or before, but most are moral verses embroidered by American girls as young as six on samplers stitched in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Samplers made during this period usually included several alphabets (in different stitches,) and numbers, a verse, a (usually floral) border, and perhaps a scene, or a family tree. They were works of art often preserved by the young woman or by her parents. Although most girls were taught sewing and embroidery skills by their families, the larger, more elaborate samplers seen today in museums and private collections were often designed by skilled teachers and taught to girls as part of their education in private schools in the mid-Atlantic and New England states. Populations in other areas were sparse at that time, and girls living there didn’t have the luxury of time to create what were really works of art.

Samplers from states outside Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington.D.C., Maryland, Delaware and the New England states are today especially valued by collectors because far fewer of them have survived.

Verses found on samplers may be from hymns, from songs of the period, from poems, or from religious texts. Primers, whose reading exercises were often moral lessons, were also a source of verses for many girls. And because of the high mortality rates of the period, verses about death were common.

For example:

           

“Beauty and virtue, when they do meet,

With a good education make a lady complete.”  (1774 sampler)

Or:             

“This work in hand my friends may have

When I am dead and in my grave

And which when’er you chance to see

May kind remembrance picture me

While on this glowing canvas stands

The Labour of my youthful hands.” (1752 sampler)

Perfect epilogues for a mystery series!

(If you’re interested in more information about the history of schoolgirl samplers and needlepoint, Lea has compiled a bibliography of sources. There’s a link to it on the home page of her website.)

Thread and Gone

When a priceless antique is stolen, murder unravels the peaceful seaside town of Haven Harbor, Maine. . .

Angie Curtis and her fellow Mainely Needlepointers know how to enjoy their holidays. But nothing grabs their attention like tying up loose threads. So when Mary Clough drops in on the group's Fourth of July supper with a question about an antique needlepoint she's discovered in her family attic, Angie and her ravelers are happy to look into the matter.

Angie's best guess is that the mystery piece may have been stitched by Mary, Queen of Scots, famous not just for losing her head, but also for her needlepointing. If Angie's right, the piece would be extremely valuable. For safekeeping, Angie turns the piece over to her family lawyer, who places it in a safe in her office. But when the lawyer is found dead with the safe open and ransacked, the real mystery begins. . .

Buy Links

paperback 

ebook