Before the Blog: July 1990 Girl with parasol Long stitch kit

Hello everyone!

One of the reasons I started this blog was because I wanted to tell the stories of pieces I made in the past, before I had a blog. Seeing as my Mum dropped off this piece at my house a few days ago, I figured this was a good a place to start.

This was made in 1989/1990 from a long stitch kit made by Anchor. We were living with my grandfather in Maidstone, Kent at the time. My Mum bought this kit for me. It was the most ambitious long stitch kit I had done at the time. I loved everything about it. The old-fashioned dress and parasol, and the pretty, flowery vintage vibe was very me at the time.

The kit provided canvas with the shape outlines marked on, pre-cut lengths of wool and an organiser card for them, and a chart.

I had made 2 or 3 kits previously, but I am pretty sure this was the first time I had done French knots.

The only thing I dislike about this is the small stitches in the skirt. They weren't on the pattern. Having finished the pattern for the skirt, I thought too much of the canvas was showing through, so I attempted to fix this with some extra stitches. It didn't work, but I didn't want to unpick and leave the canvas showing, so I decided to live with it.

Here is a recently unearthed picture of me working on this piece! I am on the right.

The three of us are sitting on my parents' bed in the 'blue room' of my grandfather's house.
My sister Vanessa on the left is copying her big sister by doing a long stitch kit of her own - an image of bears and balloons that would hang on our shared bedroom wall for several years afterwards. My Mum in the centre is working on a cross stitch kit - a bell pull depicting British birds. This work would have a profound influence on me - my next two large embroidery projects after this were a cross stitch sampler and a blackwork bell pull. And I am working on this kit! You can see a long piece of white wool in my hand.
I don't remember who took the photo - probably my Dad but it could have been my grandfather.

My Mum had this piece framed very soon after completion. The sticker of the framer is still on the back bottom right hand corner.

A quick Google search tells me they are still in business here.
Mum also very sensibly labelled the back in the bottom left hand corner.

As we moved to Colchester in September of 1990, for the framer to have been in Maidstone, Mum must have moved quickly.

This hung on the upstairs hall wall of my parents house in Colchester, alongside an award-winning drawing by my brother, Alex, and various paintings by my grandfather, Desmond Bourke. It was there for nearly 30 years. Now, my parents have had that hallway redecorated and my Mum decided to give this piece back to me. It has yet to find a place to hang in my own house, but I have a few ideas.

After making this, I moved on from long stitch kits to cross stitch kits being my main type of embroidery, so this marks the end of that phase in my sewing journey.

Incidentally, I would like to come up with a name for this series of posts. Something a bit more original than 'Before the blog'. Suggestions welcome.

Thanks for reading!