Elsie & Granny's Excellent Stitching Adventure

This past weekend was Heather's wedding, so our week was filled with visiting, rehearsing, dining, primping and just enjoying family.  But after all the festivities were over and while my mom was still visiting from Kentucky, the little ones and I took her up to Baltimore to visit the Maryland Historical Society and add a few stitches to the Flag Project.  While Elsie was watching this stitcher work on a star, she was asked if she wanted to pull the thread through to complete the lady's stitch (sorry I didn't catch this nice stitching volunteer's name).

Well that's all it took, and Elsie was hooked.  She watched intently as Miss Beverly sat down to show her how to stitch on one of the stripes. 

 She gave lessons to both Elsie and my Mom...

 ...teaching them how many threads to count over and the size the stitches should be.

 ...Then it was Elsie's turn to take her first stitch :)

 Next Granny got to take a few stitches. 

My mom's not new to stitching ~ she's pieced and quilted many a quilt by hand so she was a natural.  It was special for Elsie to get to stitch on the flag with her Great Granny :)

Then Elsie got some pointers from Miss Mary Ann on how to hold her left hand underneath to feel the tip of the needle coming through the material and make sure her stitches were going all the way through all the layers.

And there were even pointers on how to thread a needle when her needle slipped off the thread once.
 

Then she peaked underneath to see how good her stitching looked on the back side.

...And a new stitcher is born :)

We're on the last week of the Stitching History Flag Project.  I go up again this weekend and will post some more photos on the progress soon!  

Enjoy the day!

~ Dawn