four years ago a lotta stitchers were working on a sampler by With Thy Needle and Thread called Coming to America - the Women of the Mayflower
the stitch-a-long started september 6 and ended november 9 of 2020
commemorating the 66 days that the women of the Mayflower were at sea
as far as i know, none of the women of the Mayflower are even remote leaves on the branches of my family tree
i am a grandchild of immigrants on my father's side
my mother's ancestors are a mystery to me
knowing what we now know
there were a lotta things that were just plain wrong with the Pilgrims' immigration to America
still, they took such a leap of faith when they boarded that ship
and i'm all in with honoring women
anywho ... i SPLURGED on the kit and had every intention of stitching along with the cool kids so that it would be finished by Thanksgiving 2020
when the kit arrived i was so stinkin' excited
i'd spent a year's worth of cross stitch money and here was this sweet box with a sweet little needle minder and 32ct country mocha fabric and overdyed floss and everything i needed to start on september 6
except
except it wasn't everything - the fabric was 28ct and the kit didn't include 11 skeins of the called for DMC floss - i didn't have the means to buy 11 skeins of floss (that weren't available because of the pandemic) and i couldn't replace the fabric, either
sigh
so i didn't start on september 6
and i sure didn't finish by Thanksgiving 2020
anywho
i stitched off and on for a long time
changing the seagulls a bit
and changing the last bit a lot because the original chart didn't have Native Americans/First Nations represented at all
and Thanksgiving would have never happened without them
the letters represent my grandmothers, Bessie and Rosina
and i changed the words from
we are living in the tomorrow from which they wrought
to
strong women rock ... yesterday today and tomorrow
It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent.
Madeleine Albright
Oh, well done.....you're right about the origins, Australia's are not all that different either. I can feel your disappointment that your kit didn't contain what you had hoped it would.
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