Free Twisted Threads by Lea Wait Page A

“How many have you got in there, Sarah?”
    “Ten,” she answered. “But I came to show you something else. I bought it at a flea market in Waterville last weekend. I wanted to come right over and see what you thought, but, of course, you’ve been busy, and I didn’t want to disturb you.”
    Sarah reached into the bag, pushed aside the balsam pillows, pulled out an old frame wrapped in tissue paper, and handed it to Gram. “Tell me what you think. I’ve never bought samplers or other needlework before. The good pieces go for high prices. But . . . you’ll see.”
    Gram carefully removed the tissue paper.
    The frame was old and damaged, and held an old piece of needlework. The glass in the frame had disappeared long ago. The stained linen inside was embroidered in faded red silk floss: Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined. Around the saying were two borders, one of small pine trees, not very different from the pine tree Sarah had embroidered on the balsam pillows, and another of convergent triangles.
    “I loved it,” said Sarah. “But you can see it’s stained, and some of the silk threads have rotted out. I looked up the quotation. Alexander Pope wrote it, in 1734.”
    “It’s lovely. Or was lovely, once,” said Gram, holding it close to her eyes so she could examine it better. “Some of the letters are gone, and some are so faded they’re hard to make out. It must have hung on a wall, and sunlight bleached the colors of the threads. I don’t know exactly how old it would be, but it certainly is at least nineteenth century. And American. I’ve never seen European embroidery that included pine trees like these.” She touched it gently. “The concentric diamonds are typical of mid-nineteenth-century rural Maine work. I wonder who did this. It was probably saved because someone treasured it.”
    “I wondered if it might be a sampler. Needlework a young girl would have done to demonstrate her skills. But the only samplers I’ve ever seen had the name of the girl, and often the date and place it was done, stitched right in. This piece has no identification.”
    “No. And it’s very simple, compared to others I’ve seen. But that makes it even more charming,” added Gram. “I love it, too, Sarah. I’m sorry it’s stained, though. I don’t think you should bleach it. That might take the stains away, but it would also take the little color left of the silk, and the silk could disintegrate further. Luckily, the stitching was on linen. It’s held up better than the silk threads.”
    “I haven’t decided what I’ll do with it,” said Sarah.
    “We shouldn’t be touching it, I suspect,” said Gram, holding on to the frame alone. “The oils from our hands might damage it. I’ve never thought of what could be done to save a piece of history like this. It should come out of the frame. The wood has probably stained the edges we can’t see.”
    “At first I thought of stitching in the missing parts, where the silk has broken. But I know with early furniture you’re not supposed to take off the paint and refinish it. People did that in the past, but now it’s thought preserving the look of the piece is important. And I don’t want to do anything until I know what’s best,” said Sarah. “I thought I’d ask you first. I saw an ad in Antiques and Fine Art Magazine for a dealer who specializes in samplers and old needlepoint. I’ll call there and ask for advice.”
    “Let us know,” said Gram, carefully handing the framed cloth back to Sarah. “No matter what it’s worth, that’s a treasure. I’m glad you shared it with us.”
    I looked down at the old handmade frame, off-kilter and cracked, and the embroidery. Needlepoint had been part of my life as long as I remembered. I’d never had any great interest in it. It was just something Gram did.
    But that scrap of old linen spoke to me. Whose needle had painstakingly embroidered that slogan and those pine trees? Perhaps it had