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Hello !
Once again, this week’s featured stitcher has a fascinating story. In addition to having advanced stitching skills and endless creativity, Nancy Claiborne, of Powell, Tennessee, is a gifted writer. I know you will enjoy her answers to my questions.
 Nancy, what was the first piece you stitched and when did you begin?
I was sewing doll clothes before I started to school and wearing my own homemade clothes in high school. But I didn’t start embroidering until I was pregnant, in 1969. I bought a copy of Jacqueline Enthoven’s wonderful book, The Stitches of Creative Embroidery, a handful of Bucilla wool on cards, and I struggled with hoop and needle and practiced the stitches, starting at the front of the book and working my way through to the end. I skipped nothing, because it was all so new to me. After my son was born, in March of the next year, I finished a sampler that now hangs in his guest room (which I enjoy each time I go back to Atlanta to visit). He also has an embroidered picture of him as a three-year-old tangled up in a kite string.
I tried to embroider crewel kits (which were all the rage at that time), but I kept changing them, adding or stitching over the lines to make other things. I finally taught my mother to embroider so she could get the embroidered picture she really wanted, not my interpretation! Teaching her to embroider was a wonderful gift to both of us, and an opportunity to give something very special to a parent that most people never get. I have many memories of laughter over the tangled state of threads and the curious forms of stitches that emerged from afternoons "at the hoops." She enjoyed stitching her kits after that, and I was free to design my own pieces.
What types of needlework have you tried and what is your favorite?
Because I have a double stigmatism, I am not a counted-work stitcher. I believe the stitchery I do is called "Free Embroidery," which I have continued to liberate by experimenting with as many different threads and yarns as I can find. My stash is an embarrassment of riches: fibers of cotton, silk, linen, rayon, wool, metallic, and blends, all in solids, variegated and ombre colors. The plainer ones, or the ones that are almost the right shade but not exactly—these I dye myself. No thread is too large or small for experimenting. If it cannot be threaded through a needle, there is always couching. Then, there are the buttons and beads and vintage lace and trims, the piles of linen that I rescue from flea markets and paint or dye and applique to more linen or hand-made paper (what better way to recycle dryer lint and all those snips from embroidery and fabric than by making your own paper?).
I combine this free approach to traditional embroidery stitches (Constance Howard has a great book on stitch variation) with ribbon embroidery (Judith Baker Montana’s lush books are marvelous starting points) and whatever else will stand still long enough to be stitched down, to make collage pieces for greeting cards and small wall hangings.
Here is a link to Judith Baker Montano’s book:
All the bits are stitched to paper—no glue— and I can send very special cards to friends and family. I have sold work in shops, but I do not like the grind of constantly turning out cards and small embroideries and collages. So, I do only work for myself now, and to give as gifts. The lack of pressure seems to produce better work.
How much time is devoted to needlework?
There is never enough time, though I live in my basement studio and only surface to clean the house if we are expecting guests, or to do laundry when we run out of underwear. I don’t see this as odd behavior, though my husband’s patience can wear thin after long periods of one-dish dinners, and I have to spend a little time reacquainting myself with the house. I have fibromyalgia and arthritis, and there is some nerve damage in one leg and hip from a nasty bout with shingles in the summer of 2003, so there are some days when I do not do much of anything except wait for a better day. On those days I read about stitchery and fiber arts (I subscribe to a half-dozen magazines on these subjects!). Or I look out the window until a new idea starts to form....
What other hobbies do you have besides needlework?
My favorite hobby is reading (and I have so many interests that there is always something in a stack of unread books that I can pull out at the end of the day). I also enjoy visiting art and craft galleries for the new perspective it gives me on the direction of art in our time. Seeing my own work through different eyes is a valuable form of criticism that I have learned from visiting shops and galleries. I used to be a weaver, and I live with the idea that I will warp one of the looms and manufacture miles of fabric again. The reality of that dream is that recycling a ton of cone thread has been an interesting challenge.
Do you have outside work or a career - present or past?
I worked in offices until my son graduated from college (as an artist who had a job in a design firm before he even graduated!). After that I began accompanying my husband’s high school choruses as a volunteer at his high school. I wrote pieces for his groups and for different children’s choirs I directed in my life’s work as a church organist. Occasionally I was commissioned to write for a group, which was a good bit of fun. Some of this was published, though I do not compose since my husband retired and we moved to the Knoxville area to be near his elderly father.
Once a year I teach a class in embroidery and related techniques for the John C. Campbell Folkschool, in Brasstown, N.C. This occupies much of my time, because I challenge myself to have different things to do in the class each year. I have a huge binder filled with samples of stitches and their variations, as well as notebooks of clippings from magazines that are inspirations for starting new explorations, and I read and add to them regularly.
 I keep notebooks of details of new things I’ve tried, a set of studio diaries that is very interesting to study for ideas when I have "embroiderer’s knot." When embroideries don’t turn out exactly as planned, I cut them apart and add them to a collage. The extreme failures end up in a batch of hand-made paper. Nothing wasted....
Do you have a particular project you would like to stitch or a new technique you would like to learn in the future?
I took a book arts course last year, and I began working in small books. After a while, I began making fabric books (why do we always think of books as paper objects?), so anything I get interested in eventually drifts around the pond of my interests until it ends up at the fiber project end.
In my deepest heart, I have a quilt that wants to be out of the dark and on a wall of my home. Bright red, I think it is. With layers of stitches and silk ribbon and photographs of my family and our animals. Or soft, creamy silk, with hand-carved mother-of-pearl buttons. Maybe blue with bright yellow... Well, you can see why it stays in my heart and grows more beautiful over the years, without stitches.
I would like to exchange Artist Trading Cards with other fiber artists, but I do not know of a web site or a place to go to do this. Maybe some of your readers know of such a place?
Do you have any "bits of wisdom" you would like to share with our readers?
If we believe things must always be done certain, set, ways, we never make new things. Experiment! Pull a thread from an old string mop and see what you can make from it on a piece of linen.... Surround it with things of great contrast so that the differing values we assign to mops and beads and hand-made lace are leveled and everything must stand for itself, without titles. Stretch a line of chain stitches until they are long and skinny, or add beads and buttons to something meant to be formal and serious and watch the smiles of the people who see what you have done!
What reactions have you received from people who have received pieces of your finished needlework?
My family is long-suffering and kind, even when they aren’t quite sure of what the object is. I am blessed to have been born into a family who love to make things with their hands and who are gifted, sharing people. Christmas, when we make things for one another, is such a lovely time of the year!
 Any further comments?
Love what you do. Life is too short to always "stitch inside the lines." And unless you are just too tired to move, never be serious, or take yourself too seriously.
Thank you, Nancy. You are amazing!
Here are some more links to books that Nancy would recommend and from which she would be inspired.
- 1659 A to Z of Embroidery Stitches
- 1659D A to Z of Embroidered Flowers
- 1659G A to Z of Crewel Embroidery
- 1790 The Art of Embroidered Flowers
- 1876 Shay Pendray’s Inventive Needlework
- 1882 The Beginner’s Guide to Freestyle Embroidery
- 1892 Helen . Stevens’ World of Embroidery
- 1893 The Timeless Art of Embroidery
- 1894 The Myth & Magic of Embroidery
- 1895 Helen M. Stevens’ Embroidered Birds
- 1896 Helen M. Stevens’ Embroidered Flowers
- 1900 Helen M. Stevens’ Embroidered Butterflies
- 1903 Helen M. Stevens’ Embroiderer’s Year
- 1909 Embroidered Bags & Purses
- 1964 Redoute’s Finest Flowers in Embroidery
- 1965 Thread Painting
- 1967 The Complete Illustrated Stitch Encyclopedia
- 1969 The Encyclopedia of Embroidery Techniques
After corresponding with Nancy about this article and her photos, I want to share her comments and know many of you will relate to what she has to say.
Thank you for your kind words, and your interest in my work. My sister has just left to return to Atlanta after staying a few days with us, and she is encouraging me to organize photographs of my work into an album, with notes about the circumstances and techniques I used to develop the pieces. In going through boxes of old work with her, I really enjoyed these past few days of retrospection and revisiting old "friends" with her. I would really hate to have to be twenty years old again, with no life experience, and absolutely no idea of the beautiful opportunities to develop creatively that lay in front of me. Young people might have beautiful, thin, bodies and gorgeous hair and skin, but being 56 years old with pieces of my life embroidered onto linen and lying in a box, waiting for me to lift them into the light, is far the more preferable life (to me, anyway!).
Thank you for brightening our day, Nancy!
This past weekend was the first of 5 Bridal showers being given for daughter, Jess. Our home was busy with Jess, Alyssa, Brian, and my parents here. The shower was Saturday evening and it was so much fun. Jess’ friends decided on a Scandinavian theme and the food served included almond cake, brought by my mother, krum kake, lefsa, little fancy open-faced sandwiches, fruit, veggies and more. The games were funny and the gifts were fun and so much appreciated. The next day we made a home-made pizza for those of us left to enjoy it. It was easy and very delicious. Jess shared this recipe with us.
Barbecue Chicken Pizza
One 12" round prepared Boboli Italian Pizza Crust placed on round pizza pan or stone
Spread the top with a combination of one small can tomato paste with one-half cup of barbecue sauce, stirred together
Sprinkle with Pizza seasonings (I didn’t put too much on our pizza)
Layer with cooked chicken chunks, thin sliced onions, mushrooms, green peppers, pineapple chunks, and whatever else you think would be good on a pizza.
Top with two cups shredded Mozzarella cheese.
Bake in 350 degree oven for 20-25 minutes or until cheese is all melted and slightly browned.
It got really good reviews!
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Are you ready for some NEW items? I have two more items to pass on to you before I get to that. Last month was Breast-Cancer Awareness month and I want to follow up on that with the following information.
Please tell ten friends today The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on it daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman.
It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on "donating a mammogram" for free (pink window in the middle). This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.
Here's the web site! Pass it along to people you know.
http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/
AGAIN, PLEASE TELL 10 FRIENDS TO TELL 10 TODAY
One more item - as you know, we are working on our 2005 January catalog. We are looking for quotes and testimonials from you, our wonderful customers. If you would like to have your testimonial in our catalog, please send them to me at: info@nordicneedle.com We will print your initials and city, state or city and country beneath your testimonial. We really appreciate it!
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