One, just one. That’s all it took to set me on a path of construction from which I may never recover.
It started at a house with junk strewn around the front and into the garage. It looked all so innocent, but hidden in the heap lurked my addictive component: One matted and framed Precious Moments cross stitch picture marked with a dollar. I didn’t need it. I don’t decorate with those colors or collect the figurines. I bought it anyway and began my decline to the label of hoarder because I might make a quilt, if I found more like it or stitched a couple of my own.
I never stitched a Precious Moments picture, but I did find more at yard sales. Plus, here and there I found other finished cross stitch pieces I had to have, hold and hoard. I bought them, brought them home and stuck them away in a corner, hoping my husband would not notice the pile slowly encroaching the floor space of our closet.
Quickly, the country living theme popular in the 1980s outnumbered my collection of Precious Moments pieces. Needle work lovers across Union County once sat for hours bending over white, cream or tan Aida cloth counting out squares to make houses, teddy bears, dolls, chickens, ducks, country kitchens, stoves, flowers, animals – even a map of Arkansas. Having invested hours of their time in the cross stitch, they had their efforts matted and framed, wrapped with a bow and presented to loved ones for birthdays, Christmas and Mother’s Day. The recipients smiled, gushed and hung the cross stitch in the living room, bedroom or over their desk at work – until 5, 10, 15 years later, they took it down and relegated it to the yard sale pile. And that’s where I found them — too many for a rational person to own, but I had to have them.
Eventually I started sewing the pieces into quilt tops. First, a small baby quilt that my visiting sisters assembled in pastel turquoise. Then, a baby quilt using a collage of the once popular teddy bears.
Including blocks I had worked, nearly four dozen cross stitch pieces went into wedding quilts for two granddaughters. When their mother looked longingly at the quilts, I asked her to give me back the cross stitch I had done for her — which no longer hung on her wall. I stitched another large family block for the center piece – and added in a third of my collection of Precious Moment cross stitch pictures and asked what colors she liked. The finished quilt of brilliant purple, yellow, green and pink pleased her immensely.
My hoarding and hobbies had paid off – but were still out of control.
I had to do something. Last year, I thought I had the perfect solution. I would make a quilt for the Arkansas Game and Fish natural quilting show. I began pulling out ducks, birds, a fish, the map of Arkansas and other country-themed cross stitch pieces. My ever helpful family insisted an Arkansas quilt needed a Razorback hog. I said it needed a deer and a Loblolly pine. The date for the show came and went while I sat still immersed in cross stitching.
The more I stitched, the more I decided it needed. For sure any Arkansas quilt made in Union County needed an oil well and maybe even a few wild animals. I stitched a block with wild life and then just for fun, I stitched typical Arkansas road kill: a possum, armadillo and skunk.
I could not quit. I had to make up that Rainey Newton House kit I had found at a yard sale.
Even after I cut the fabric and began sewing the quilt together I kept looking at cross stitch magazines. Tucked away in a corner at the UCAPS thrift shop “For Pets’ Sake” I found a pattern I absolutely had to have on my quilt: a basket weaver. It only took four or five nights of stitching to make the little lady magically appear – and another couple hours to disassemble, remove a few blocks already in place and re-arrange the new order.
Last night, after a month of sewing until midnight after working all day, I finished the last seam and pronounced my work ready to be quilted. It has 72 cross stitch blocks – eight bear my initials. For the rest, a big thank you to present and former cross stitchers of Union County, you have helped me create a quilt I will treasure for many years.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at jhershberger@eldoradonews.com.)