Sixty Years In The Making...

When I was eight years old, I had an autograph book. My Dad signed it, and wrote "Revelation 2;10 - Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life". My Nana was fond of quoting Luke 9:23 "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me". My Mum, given to memorable aphorisms, often declared "No cross, no crown"

Fast forward to the 1970s, when I read the biography of George Mueller, a German evangelist whose life spanned the 19th century [1805 -1898] Thus guy achieved so much, including founding the Ashley Down Orphanage in Bristol, where over 10,000 children were cared for. He ensured that when they left, each child was equipped to find work - and that included teaching them to sew - making beautiful redwork samplers. 

About 20 years ago, when my friend Marjorie died, her son gave me all her embroidery threads, including a small box containing a few red coton-à-broder skeins. This is not stranded like my usual floss. Until now, I'd not stitched with it, but I got it out when we began the CCC to delineate the twelve sections on the canvas.

And I remembered the Bristol Redwork, and the words of my family, and thought I should do something appropriate with the red thread. I recalled an article in Country Living where somebody had bought a piece of Victorian embroidery, and thought it said Not NoW, until somebody explained it was actually a rebus -  No Cross, No Crown.

Not now is a phrase popular with Grandson George [who will be three next week]  So I decided that I would produce a redwork piece for this phrase. April began with Good Friday,and May begins with a coronation, so cross and crown are very topical.

Kirsten's told me her April stitching has just under 2000 stitches. Mine has a quarter of that number. But it took me most of the past month to design and execute the piece [not counting the sixty years I have been thinking about it!]