Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Earth Threads

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:

Needlework: The constant thread said...

Very moving Donna. I have a feeling you will find some time to stitch these samplers!

Anna van Schurman said...

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.

llknbillburg said...

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