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Sunday 10 January 2010

Why Needleprint? (And another New Year's Revolution!)

It is more than reasonable to assume that the name Needleprint was chosen for this enterprise of ours because we print books specifically to do with needlework. However, for me, the word print has more significance than simply printing books. It signifies a unique, perhaps traceable, identity - in the same way we have fingerprints, footprints and, now, DNA prints. The sound, or mark, of a thread left behind by someone plying a needle has no word of its own that I know of. It might be interesting to consider what that word might be if it existed. I would be interested to know what comes to your mind. There is so much heart in something hand-stitched, that I have created another New Year's Revolution for myself: To give presents that are either books - or hand-made stitching and nothing else. And I shall ask my family not to buy me presents in future, but to simply put a few stitches, what ever they can achieve, in a little square of cloth for me, and tomorrow I shall be sending out some little offcuts of linen, thread and needles, to help them and not leave them too daunted. (I hope!) By doing this, my wish is to spread the gift of stitching, because stitching in itself is a great gift and it would be sad not to have it, or to lose it. I was very taken by a very forward-looking initiative taken by Stockholm City Council to promote handcrafts - particularly those which recycle existing materials. They are sponsoring craft consultants who will work in schools, hospitals, with the disabled and in the wide community. There is a little PDF in Swedish to download - but you can make sense of it by copying and pasting into Bing or some other translator. Does your council have some intitiave like this? Do you think it would be a good idea? It might not happen unless we are the ones to talk first about it. Perhaps if we take some stitching along, our stitches may speak louder than words.

4 comments:

  1. In Sweden all of our provinces has something called slöjdkonsulenter (craft-counsellor), they support the arts and crafts and conserve old ways of crafting. They have a small paper that comes out a few times a year with reports and classes you can sign up for.
    Hm...where was I going with this, oh yes, the craft-circle has been getting bigger and bigger and recycling has definitively a part in it.

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  2. This is such good news to hear, thank you, I think we can learn a lot from Sweden.

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  3. Jacqueline that is such a lovely idea, only stitched gifts, and the titel of this Swedish site is wonderful. Maybe I should have thought about mine a bit more, did that in 2 mins.
    Liefs

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  4. i love this idea. i started with my four sisters a few years ago a craft every other month. where each of us gets a turn at picking out a craft of some sort and then we either ,pick names or make four to send to each of us. We have made bookmarkers, scrap book pages on various themes and colors, dolls, ornaments,books, we have even got our husbands involved occasionally. i love it great way to get my sisters involved in what i love and also to see their creative side.

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