STITCH BY STITCH

Barrington native Jennie Welsh shares her love of needlepoint.

A passion for something can come on suddenly, full-blown. At other times, it creeps up on us, and we may not even realize it until someone says, “Wow, you really like that, don’t you?” Sometimes, the thing we love entered our life at one point, retreated, and then reappears. Growing up in Barrington, Jennie Welsh learned needlepoint from her paternal grandmother. She picked up cross-stitching in college and later, learned to knit. One day, when her daughter was attending school in Northbrook, she passed by The Canvasback on Orchard Lane, where her grandmother had shopped. She popped in and has been hooked on needlepoint ever since.

“I love the portability of needlepoint and that I can always have a project on hand if I have some downtime,” says Welsh, who lives in an 1890s farmhouse in Barrington Hills that she had her husband, Jay, recently renovated. “I have spent hours sitting on the sidelines of soccer games, horse shows, or waiting in the car line at school and love that I can just pull out my needlepoint bag and get in a few stitches while waiting. I find stitching to be very relaxing and gets me off my phone. I stitch on airplanes. I always request the window seat so I have good light. I love the satisfaction of completing a project and deciding how it will be used or who I will be giving it to.”

A type of embroidery in which thread is tightly woven through a thick canvas, needlepoint has been traced to ancient Egypt. It emerged in Europe in the 15th century, where it became a popular pastime for aristocrats and royals, from Mary, Queen of Scots to Marie Antoinette. By the 18th century, the craft had moved from the court to the street so to speak, with shops selling needlepoint supplies, as well as finished products. In 19th-century America, girls as young as 6 were taught to handle a needle (often in stitching samplers) in preparation for the task of making their own clothes.

Working mostly in silk or a silk blend, Welsh always has various projects going at once—rounds that are turned into ornaments or canvases that become zippered pouches to be used as a clutch or a travel bag. “During Covid there was a huge surge in people picking up needlepoint and turning to Instagram as a way to learn and share ideas,” she notes. “There are so many creative people out there who are using needlepoint in lots of new ways. I have seen backgammon boards, signs for weddings, birthday crowns, lamp shades, and more.”

Welsh has enjoyed getting to know other needlepoint fans and shares her own work on @time2ndlpt. “It is a really supportive community and I have met a lot of people virtually,” she says. “Coming out of Covid, people were looking for ways to connect in person and you saw more and more retreats start to pop up around the county.” Welsh has attended several such gatherings, her first in Charleston, South Carolina, her most recent in April, in Kansas City. “At this point, the retreats are very popular and you have to enter lotteries to get into them.  It speaks to the popularity of needlepoint and people wanting ways to connect in person with other stitchers.” Inspired by the fellowship and friendship she enjoyed at these retreats, Welsh decided to recreate that experience closer to home. “I knew some women here who were interested in learning, so I put together a group and brought some teachers out from The Canvasback to teach the first lesson.” Welsh picked a project—travel tags—and put together the kits for everyone. “The designer of these tags lives in Kansas City, but has a good relationship with The Canvasback,” says Welsh. “She ended up flying in to join us for that first class. It was so wonderful to have her here. She talked about how she came to be a needlepoint designer and helped teach the class.” Welsh anticipated a turnout of about four or five, but 20 people showed up for that first lesson. The Stitch Club—now numbering 35, with members from Barrington and beyond—meets once a month and its roster continues to grow. “We are all women at different points in our lives,” relates Welsh. “We have the newly married, moms juggling young kids and school schedules, those that are getting ready for some big transitions as kids head off to college for the first time, and those that are at the point in life where they are traveling more, have more time to take on a new hobby. One of the things I really love about the community is that it is so multi-generational.”

That multi-generational aspect plays out directly on the walls of Welsh’s home, too. “I have a freehand embroidery tapestry that my grandmother stitched in 1971 of my parents’ love story,” says Welsh. “It’s a large piece that I framed and hung in my craft room. I also have a framed crochet piece that my great-grandmother made in 1939. My grandmother gave it to me when I was in high school, and it has a typed note on the back telling me a little about my great-grandmother and her love of needlework. I have a Christmas village that I am in the process of stitching now and love the idea of it being something that gets passed on through my children.”