In Stitches

I received this in the mail last Saturday from a wonderful stitcher friend. You cannot begin to imagine how grateful I am to receive such an item. I certainly do not deserve it. I have never done anything to warrant having such a gift. And I am very much choked up about it. The fabric is not two-tone. I scanned the gift into my computer, so the gray coloring is from the shadows against the glass. The fabric on the front one is the tan coloring in the corner.

When young (12-14), I used to do cross-stitching. It was nothing as big and beautiful as this. Small little decorations for Christmas trees were about the biggest projects my limited talent could create. I worked with those kits where the manufacture gave you everything in the bag, including a diagram of where to place the thread in the fabric. I would not have known where to begin to make something like this, or have the creativity to add the finishing touches. The timing was impeccable with my birthday this past Wednesday. I now can claim I got a birthday present given from someone’s heart with no strings attached (I know there is a string of beading on there, you wise-arses).

Anyway, you might be wondering about the title I chose for this post. It has a double meaning. Of course I used the stitching reference because of the type of present this is. But I am sure everyone has heard the phrase “being in stitches,” meaning to laugh. Well, after I opened the mounds of bubble wrap and tissue paper, I laughed as I looked at the gift and then at the picture I have on my desk.


Notice anything similar between the two items? Colors? Outlines? No, this wonderful stitcher friend has never seen the picture on my desk. So this just makes the gift ten times better. The best things come from the heart. And when seeing this and hearing my laughter, I could not have agreed more.