Ad inspires visions of ghost stitchers

As I was leafing through a back issue of Piecework magazine recently, I saw an ad for a needlework stitching service called Ghoststitchers. I didn’t visit the company’s Web site, www.ghoststitchers.com, because I was more intrigued by the juxtaposition of the two words, ghost and stitchers, which conjured up intriguing images in the mishmash mosaic that passes for my mind.

I saw Betsy Ross, her angel wings, made by the ghost of Guinevere, who lived a Celtic queen and died a Christian nun, glinting with silver threads. I watched Betsy applique white silk stars on the new American flag, each stitch so fine as be almost invisible. I saw the gold thimble on her finger, too.

Betsy sewed for a concept of liberty that embraced neither herself nor others of her kind. She may have hoped that Mrs. Adams’ plea to her husband, John, to “remember the ladies” would not be ignored and become a task for future generations of stitchers – the Suffragettes battling for the right for women to vote – to sew up that particular lapse in constitutional framing.

I conjured up poet Emily Dickinson, clad in a long white dress, a self-styled recluse drifting alone, already a wraith, through the rooms of her father’s big house. I saw the ball of dark red yarn, as tightly wound as her own turbulent heart, in her hand and a small mitten still on the knitting needles.

I pictured her leaning out the window in the attic, that traditional place of all women of genius with too many voices in their heads, voices speaking too fast, too cryptically, to lay decently, quietly, on the placid white page. For a moment, perhaps, her troublesome thoughts were defused, wild ideas tamed, as she tossed the red mittens to a child passing by. As she knit, did poems creep out more slowly from the dark places in her soul, to burn brightly in the corners of her agile mind?

I thought of Queen Elizabeth of England – the first one – locked away in a tower, sitting at her embroidery frame, marking the dark flow of time, stitch by stitch, the scarlet and gold yarns slowly filling the needlepoint canvas. I saw her examining critically a piece of crewel embroidery, holding it up to catch the dim light – a Tudor rose, lush green vines snaking out in undisciplined scrolls, as if reaching greedily for the uncertain future. What sharp resolve, what hardening of purpose, what stubborn streak of determination was felted into her soul as she stitched and waited, stitched and waited, for the day when England would be hers to pattern as she pleased?

And in my mind I saw a pantheon of anonymous women of all ages knitting wool socks for the feet of men marching to Valley Forge, to Gettysburg, to the Argonne woods, to Omaha Beach, their way of championing righteous causes.

I saw other, equally anonymous women of many cultures knitting wool socks for thousands of pairs of hopeful feet as they disembarked from the cramped holds of ships anchored at Ellis Island.

I saw women in ragged clothing piecing quilts from flour sacks to provide shelter from the winds of the economic disasters of the 1930s. I saw little girls in dark blue dresses doing daily stints on linen alphabet samplers, each one containing thousands of patiently wrought cross stitches, as each child learned lessons in duty, patience and usefulness.

I thought, too, of the various afghans, tablecloths and sweaters many of us have finished after the passing of relatives and friends, poignant reminders that time eventually runs out for all of us even if the supply of yarn and thread in the universe never does.

Snippets

. “Everything New Again,” the 18th annual quilt show, will be on display 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, July 16, at the United Methodist Church in Atkinson. Luncheon will be served from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Admission is a $2 donation.

. Bangor Public Library is going to dedicate some space in the main reading room for fiber art displays. The displays will be chosen by the art committee. To apply, call Diane Smith, 947-8336, Ext. 139.

. Stop by the Old Town Public Library to view a double-size log cabin quilt being raffled to benefit Canoe Hullabaloo July 10-16. Canoe City Quilters is sponsoring the raffle. Raffle tickets are available at the library.

The quilt was pieced by Valerie Osborne and machine quilted by Sandy Boobar, members of Canoe City Quilters.

The drawing for the quilt will be held Wednesday, Aug. 10, at the last Concert in the Park performance. To learn more about the raffle or Canoe City Quilters, call the library at 827-3972.

Ardeana Hamlin can be reached at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.