Back in the 1990s, I had a span of time when I stopped stitching. I had offered to stitch someone a gift and they chose a large piece that I hated and it took all the joy out of stitching.
About 18 months later I came back to my then small stash - it all fit in a dresser drawer quite comfortably. I became quite active on the AOL cross stitch boards. Unraveling Threads was a favorite place to hang out. But one special board was formed for the fans of Betsy Stinner. The Earth Threads board had a group of over 100 diehard Betsy fans. Betsy herself would even stop by and post.
My first piece using overdyed threads was Betsy so Strawberry Sampler. I love her well-designed band samplers. So many stitches to learn. In fact, this piece has the first queen stitches I ever did.
I have maybe a dozen of her charts? I still want to stitch most of them. I'm sorry I never got to take a class with her. Her illness got in the way the one time I was going to. I'm sorry she has lost her battle with breast cancer. I will always think of her with tremendous fondness.
Betsy C. Stinner Obituary: View Betsy Stinner's Obituary
3 comments:
Very moving Donna. I have a feeling you will find some time to stitch these samplers!
I did take a couple of classes with Betsy. She was wonderful. I bought one of her charts--it had back stitched grapes in the center--and stitched that part as an insert for a wine coaster, a gift for my dad. I told her husband about it at their booth at Spirit. I walked by again and overheard her telling another customer what I had done. In the days before stitching blogs, there weren't a lot of ways for people to find out the "clever" use of patterns. I was a huge fan of both of them after that! So sorry to hear that she lost the fight.
I was so sad to hear of Betsy's passing. I too have taken classes from her in the past and have many of her charts. I found one recently on
Ebay that I had been searching for for years. She was so much fun and had a wonderful sense of humor. She will be sorely missed. Laura
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