Diverted by a Trip to the Salvation Army

I was shopping in an area of town I'm not in that often and discovered a Salvation Army store that wasn't there the last time I drove by. Naturally, I had to stop and see what I could scrounge up.

I hit the jackpot in the frame section. I often stop here because you can find great frames really cheap. A lot of times they are of higher quality than newer frames, but you have to dig and be prepared to discard the framed item inside. I bought 11 frames sized 5 x 7 and smaller. One came with needlepoint and the another with crewel. The remaining 9 where empty. At 50 cents each I couldn't pass up the discarded needlework.

Even though the colors are somewhat dated and the work may be sloppy in parts they are works of beauty that somebody at sometime put effort into and I had to rescue them.

The finishing is rather crude on both of them. Sometimes I do my own hack job of framing but never like this. The needlepoint is nicely laced but then it was duct taped into position.

The crewel was not laced. It was both scotch and masking taped into position and then nailed in place. So much for museum quality framing. (Yes, the tag says a dollar, but there was a 50% off sale going on)

It makes me wonder about the future of my stitching. I have no children to pass my handwork to. I give my handcrafted items away to friends and family. Many others I keep for myself. But, I'm a realist. Many of my items may suffer the same fate. You can only hang so much on your walls, styles change, you want something new ...

So, next time you are out bargain hunting I hope you can find a discarded treasure and take it home.

To the 2 anonymous stitchers I offer you temporary imortality (now that's an oxymoron) by posting your work on the Internet so others may enjoy.

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Erica's Stitches

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