needlepoint | dual personalities

March 7, 2022

What then shall we say to these things?

by chuckofish

This weekend I stepped out of my comfort zone and ventured to an estate sale in a part of town that is terra incognita to me. Daughter #2 was in Jeff City so I had no trusty co-pilot…but I found the house without a problem. It was in Affton, a tiny house that would usually never tempt me, but the pictures on the estate sale website had led me to believe that it might be worthwhile because there were lots of Ehrman needlepoint pillows, finished, unfinished and unopened kits. A veritable treasure trove of the best kits from the U.K.! Even though I arrived within an hour of opening, a lot of the best pillows and all the kits were already gone. However, upon investigation, I soon discovered that the woman who had made all the pillows and sewed all the kits was not a very accomplished needlepointer. They were all trapezoidal, not square, and nothing had been blocked. Her stitching was terrible. What a shame!

I bought one that had not yet been made into a pillow in memory of the devoted needlepointer, but I am ~~uncertain~~ pretty sure it can’t be salvaged.

I also bought a good book…

…which happened to have the woman’s name in it. It sounded vaguely familiar and I was curious, so I googled her. It turns out she went to my old Episcopal church! Zut alors–the world is so small.

We had another great sermon in church on Sunday. It was on Romans 8:31-39, one of the greatest passages in scripture.

³¹What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³²He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? ³³Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. ³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶As it is written:
“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
³⁷Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, ³⁹nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

As usual, I cried during every hymn. All these tears made me think of what Frederick Buechner wrote about tears…

Whenever you find tears in your eyes, especially unexpected tears, it is well to pay the closest attention. They are not only telling you something about the secret of who you are, but more often than not God is speaking to you through them of the mystery of where you have come from and is summoning you to where, if your soul is to be saved, you should go to next.
–Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark

Nevertheless, it is kind of embarrassing and I need to stop wearing mascara to church.

The boy and his wee family joined us at church and then came over for brunch. The sun wasn’t out, but it was warm enough to do a little exploring in the yard after our meal…

…and I put the wee babes to work picking up sticks after a very windy winter…

This is a game they enjoy. (Lottie made believe we were going to have a bonfire. Make-believe bonfires are the best.) I went out and bagged it up later.

How was your weekend?

Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as now.
Elvina M. Hall, 1865

8 Comments

February 8, 2022

Ring the bells that still can ring

by chuckofish

After four months at the finisher, my elephant pillow is back! Pretty fab, if I don’t say so myself.

Reminded by a reference to it in Sunday’s sermon, we watched Apollo 13 (1995) on Sunday night. Directed by Ron Howard, it dramatizes the aborted 1970 lunar mission, Apollo 13, which was America’s fifth crewed mission to the Moon and was intended to be the third to land. It is a good movie. It avoids politics and sticks to the story–a story which is exciting enough without embellishment. Indeed, it is an amazing story of the heroic actions of a large group of NASA scientists and the astronauts themselves in order to bring them and their disabled lunar module home. It is a story of smart people using their god-given brains and not giving up in the face of terrible odds. Ron Howard plays it straight and it is a good movie, certainly his best.

I remember the events portrayed in the movie vividly. I was in the eighth grade and I remember how terribly anxious everyone was. We actually watched the re-entry of the module on television at school. It could have ended in disaster on national television, but thankfully, it did not. It ended in triumph.

President Nixon awarding the three Apollo 13 astronauts the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Yesterday I attended a live-streamed funeral service for another old friend from my flyover institute. Leonard was 95 and a veteran of both WWII and Korea. When he was 90 he published a memoir of his harrowing experiences as a medic in Korea. He wrote the memoir over several years in a creative writing class he took at LLI (a class he later facilitated.) He was a very interesting guy. He was half Episcopalian and half Jewish, but when he married the daughter of a prominent Jewish family, he became a full-time Jew. We chuckled about that and about a lot of things. It was a blessing and a privilege to be able to spend time with him and to know him.

He who makes peace in his high holy places, may he bring peace upon us, and upon all Israel; and say Amen.

Here’s Leonard’s favorite song by that other Leonard:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

6 Comments

December 12, 2018

One more postcard

by chuckofish

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)

I promise I am just about done with posting about my pilgrimage, but one more thing…

You might remember a few years ago that a dear friend of mine went to the holy land and also attended a service at St. George’s Cathedral in Jerusalem. She snapped a picture of a needlepoint kneeler there with my name on it:

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When I was at the cathedral the Sunday before last, I looked high and low for this cushion, but could not find it!

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So frustrating…

However, I did take a few pictures of some of the other wonderful kneelers that are used there. They are from Anglican and Episcopal churches all over the world.

Aren’t they wonderful? Some are a little worse for wear, but that’s okay. I like to think of all those women (and maybe a few men) who stitched them over the years.

Methinks it is a token of healthy and gentle characteristics, when women of high thoughts and accomplishments love to sew; especially as they are never more at home with their own hearts than while so occupied. –Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Marble Faun, 1859

8 Comments

March 13, 2017

“Pardon me for seeing the glass half full”*

by chuckofish

I’m sure you heard that March 10 was the 20th anniversary of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Because people in 1997 dressed like that in high school never.

Daughter #1 was in seventh grade in 1997 so, of course, I didn’t let her watch a show about vampires. Daughter #2 was in second grade! Good grief. (I was the Mom who wouldn’t let her seven-year old daughter go to the cool girl birthday party to see The Spice Girls movie, thus wrecking her social standing for-ever.) Mea culpa. We discovered Buffy later when it was in syndication, and I realized (once again) that I was an idiot and should have let daughter #1 watch such an empowering show for girls. But oh well, we were a little late to the party, but we got there and we are all huge Buffy ~~nerds~~ fans. And if you are not, what is wrong with you?

Anyway, this weekend I watched a good part of season one again. And it was pretty great.

In other news, the OM and I got trapped at home when our garage door broke and we couldn’t get our cars out. (See Buffy marathon above) The repairman didn’t come until 8:30 Saturday night! Well, the door was eventually fixed and I was able to get up (after springing forward an hour) on Sunday morning and drive to church.

The Gospel reading was from John chapter 3 where Nicodemus goes to see Jesus in the dark of night to ask him what’s what. Jesus says, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” It is one of my favorite scripture passages and it made me very happy to hear it. It also made me want to watch the scene in Jesus of Nazareth with Laurence Olivier as Nicodemus. And so I did later in the day.

After church the OM and I went to Schneithorst’s and then we went to see the wee babes in the NICU and held them for an hour. Who needs anxiety medication when you can hold a baby? By the way, Lottie is going home today!

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Here she is without a feeding tube and breathing all on her own, burping after a bottle. She is nearly 7 lbs and has no tape on her face!

The little bud has to have a little hernia operation (not unusual) and then he’ll be ready to come home too.

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He’s breathing on his own too! He weighs 6 lbs 3 oz.!

And it snowed too. Winter is back, but c’est la vie. Have a good week back at the salt mine!

*Rupert Giles, Buffy, Season one, episode three

5 Comments

June 4, 2015

O Pioneers!

by chuckofish

The Sign of the Arrow called Tuesday to say that daughter #1’s ornament–which she had dropped off in April when she was home–was ready to pick up and so I stopped by after work.

Isn’t it great? The Pioneer is the mascot of our local high school. He is a manly pioneer with a coonskin cap. For me he always evokes Walt Whitman and his:

COME, my tan-faced children,

Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;

Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes? Pioneers! O Pioneers!

Anyway, I had to share.

6 Comments

April 9, 2014

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

This past weekend I went to several really good estate sales. One was at the home of a woman who had gone to my school, graduating 20 years earlier. Clearly it was a home she had moved to after either getting a divorce or being widowed. You can always tell when this is the case, because the woman has painted the inside of the house pink and redone the closets to suit herself. She has said, in effect, finally I’m going to have things the way I like.

She had obviously been an avid needlepointer. I bought a couple of unfinished kits and two books.

One is a vintage copy of Mary Martin’s Needlepoint (1969)–a delightful look into the hobby and home of the famous Broadway star.

You remember Mary Martin–she starred on Broadway in the original productions of Annie Get Your Gun, South Pacific, The Sound of Music and a host of other shows.

She took up needlepointing as a way to pass the time waiting in the wings offstage and on sets. She started BIG…with a rug!

Mary posing on “the rug” with other projects

“The Rug is known by a variety of names. It was the innocent, impulsive beginning—all five and a half by seven and a half feet of it!—of my doing needlepoint.” She designed it herself, incorporating symbols that represented important aspects of her life. It took a few years, but she kept going. Impressive. Also impressive is the fact that she designed all her own work. No kits for her! Her stitching is all very personal and heart-felt.

Through the years several of her friends found and bought antique samplers from the 18th and 19th centuries for her that included the name “Mary Martin” on them. Nice friends! Eventually she designed her own sampler incorporating motifs from shows that meant the most to her.

Mary’s theatre sampler

Mary Martin made pillows, purses, pictures, upholstered furniture, and more throughout her storied life. For needlepointers or theater-lovers, this is a fun book.

Meanwhile I continue to work my way through The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I am determined to finish this rather Dickensian opus, but I do think it is overly long. The author writes very well; we’ll see.

I must say that I believe I would get along famously with the author, who is considered one of the most reclusive contemporary authors around. Moreover, she’s indifferent to technology, avoids social media and does most of her writing by hand in notebooks. According to one of the very few articles I could find about her (in Business Day), “when her novels are released, she grants few interviews in which she reveals very little about herself. She’s known to become prickly when journalists dare suggest certain characters in her books are based on people she knows. Her private life is just that, private.”

What are you reading?

9 Comments

November 20, 2013

What makes a home beautiful?

by chuckofish

Bloggers are fond of asking themselves this question. The glossy home magazines endlessly try to answer this question.

1. For me, a house has to look lived in. Clearly the home is a reflection of the people who live in it. So if the house doesn’t even looked lived in, how can it be beautiful? Thank goodness, perfection is not the answer.

2. A home needs lots of art on the walls. My mother taught me that you should only have “original” art on the first floor. Prints, posters and the like belong upstairs. I get that. She considered old family photographs as art. But definitely not new photographs, i.e. school pictures. Art is a very personal thing and it always amazes me when people have decorators pick art for them to hang on their walls.

3. I like a mix of antiques and new furniture. My mother abhorred “suites” of furniture, i.e. sets bought all together. She said that if you collect antiques or vintage furniture, nothing will match and you will have different periods and styles represented. And that’s okay.

4. I like plants. I probably have too many, but a punch of green in every room is a necessity. They also clean the air!

5. Books! I know a lot of people think books are dust-attracters and a waste of money when there are libraries and kindles out there, but, gee, a home is neither beautiful nor lived-in without books. You either get that or you don’t. However, using books as a decorating prop is a no-no in my opinion.

6. I love dishes–old, new, whatever. I like to display them. I remember frequently going to the furniture store (which was next door to the grocery store) with my mother to gaze at the china displays. We would say, “Oh, I like that pattern!” and “Oh, isn’t that one pretty?!” This, of course, is how you teach your children to appreciate beautiful things. It’s not about buying things, but learning to look at things and see them and discriminate between the beautiful and the average. It’s like going to art museums to look at the art and saying, “I like that!” You learn to have an opinion.

7. Fresh flowers.

8. Needlework: samplers, needlepoint pillows, lovely bed linens–especially when made by people we love.

This, of course, is my list and I do not mean to imply that someone who loves a match-matchy house with lots of family pictures in the living room and no books is wrong. As daughter #1 says, “It is just not my aesthetic.” People should decorate to suit themselves.

As you can tell, I was much influenced by my mother, who (I think) had great taste. She learned a lot from her mother, but she really had a sense of style that far surpassed anyone else in her family. Where did that come from? I don’t know. She understood what a “tableau” or “vignette” was long before they became decorating watchwords. She never had much money to spend on her home, but she did her best to make it beautiful.

The great Albert Hadley once said: “Decorating is not about making stage sets, it’s not about making pretty pictures for the magazines; it’s really about creating a quality of life, a beauty that nourishes the soul.”

I agree. My mother would have agreed too. Furthermore, I am grateful for my home and for the people who live/have lived in it. A sense of gratitude also adds to the beauty of a home, don’t you think?

8 Comments

October 31, 2013

This and that: toil and trouble edition

by chuckofish

Halloween really crept up on me. For the first time, I forgot to send cards to my loved ones. Not that it has ever been one of my favorite holidays, but without any little children around, it holds even less appeal for moi. I mean there are people in my neighborhood who put up fake cemeteries in their front yards at the end of September! Good grief.

Since I have sworn off candy corn, what does that leave?

Well, because I love my traditions, I did dig out my Halloween candles earlier in the month.

And here’s an adorable picture of the boy in toddler cowboy mode:

In other news, earlier in the week I picked up my finished needlepoint pillow from the Sign of the Arrow.

You’re impressed, right? The ladies at the SOTA were too. Allow me to bask in the light of this accomplishment for a little bit, please.

And in honor of our departed pater, who died on this day 21 years ago, let us read Psalm 90.

LORD, thou hast been our refuge, *
from one generation to another.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever the earth and the world were made, *
thou art God from everlasting, and the world without end.
Thou turnest man to destruction; *
again thou sayest, Come again, ye children of men.
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday
when it is past, *
and as a watch in the night.
As soon as thou scatterest them they are even as a sleep, *
and fade away suddenly like the grass.
In the morning it is green, and groweth up; *
but in the evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered.
For we consume away in thy displeasure, *
and are afraid at thy wrathful indignation.
Thou hast set our misdeeds before thee, *
and our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.
For when thou are angry all our days are gone; *
we bring our years to an end, as it were a tale that is told.
The days of our age are threescore years and ten;
and though men be so strong that thy come to fourscore years, *
yet is their strength then but labor and sorrow,
so soon passeth it away, and we are gone.
So teach us to number our days, *
that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

7 Comments

October 1, 2013

And in breaking news….

by chuckofish

I ~~finally~~ finished my cat needlepoint! Daughter #1 reminds me that I started it when she was in high school, i.e. over 10 years ago. Nevertheless, I am proud of myself for completing the project. Better late than never, right?

Also, in case you weren’t paying attention, the hometown team clinched the Central Division. We have the best record in baseball!

USA Today photo

And, yes, HE’S our manager, so it’s a win/win.

Today is also the 52nd anniversary of Roger Maris of the New York Yankees hitting his 61st home run of the season, breaking the record Babe Ruth set in 1927. How time does fly!

Roger Maris ended his career in St. Louis, playing his final two seasons with the Cardinals, helping to win the 1967 and 1968 pennants. He was outstanding in the 1967 World Series, hitting .385 with one home run and seven RBIs. It was the best performance of his seven career World Series.

Go, Cards!

4 Comments

August 9, 2013

Friday movie pick(s)

by chuckofish

Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows that I take advantage of any opportunity to feature a picture of Steve McQueen. Well, today it’s Steve McQueen day on TCM all day–12 movies!

So quick, set your DVRs! They’re not showing The Great Escape (1963), but they are showing The Magnificent Seven (1960), which stars many of the same actors and is also directed by John Sturges. It’s the classic re-make of Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai–a great idea which they actually pulled off pretty well. In this version embattled Mexican peasants hire seven American gunfighters to protect their village from Eli Wallach and his army of bandits. The seven include Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter, and the German Horst Buchholtz as “Chico”. What a line-up! It also features the famous score by Elmer Bernstein.