God’s Handiwork: Meet Sue Hillhouse and Barbara Stout
Two more needlework arts aficionados featured on our Art Wall this month are Sue Hillhouse and Barbara Stout.
Sue always loved to sew and make things. “My mother made most of my clothes when I was little and through junior high school,” she said. After that, she was accomplished enough that she could make her own clothes. Sue taught herself to knit from an article in Seventeen magazine.
In college, Sue majored in home economics. She taught for two years while husband Tom finished law school. She then “retired” to become a full-time mom for 10 years. “I returned to teaching, but this time in middle school math and science for 19 years at The Seven Hills School in Cincinnati.”
The photos for the quilt were taken over 20 years of hiking in Colorado. The creation was a COVID project.
Sue rarely follows a pattern now and mostly enjoys the creativity involved in trying to copy nature.
She has an early memory of sitting on her grandmother’s lap while she worked the treadle on her sewing machine. She also played with two doll quilts that she or her mother made when they were learning to quilt.
Barbara Stout was inspired to work in needle arts by her grandmother. “She taught me to sew on a treadle machine and got me started in cross-stitch, quilting and embroidery” she said. “My mother-in-law taught me to needlepoint almost 50 years ago.”
About 12 years ago Barbara decided needlepoint was the art that she was most passionate about. “I’m most proud of several things I have made: the stockings I have stitched for my husband and myself, a three-foot stuffed Santa and a 3-D stuffed turkey, she said.
A major accomplishment for Barbara is to have stitched close to 200 ornaments for various seasons. “I have a whole Christmas tree that is needlepoint only,” she said.
A health benefit for Barbara is that needlepoint calms her while letting her be creative. There is rarely a day that she doesn’t stitch for at least an hour.
Barbara is in a group called Stitcher’s Safe Place that was formed during the pandemic by several Facebook friends who had never met in person. “We started Zooming once a week in April of 2020 and have not missed a week since,” she said. “We are up to 75 active members and six different Zooms a week”. The group has had three retreats to meet in person so far with the fourth coming up in June.
In 2021 the group met in Seattle, 2022 in St. Louis, 2023 in Atlanta and this year’s gathering will be in La Jolla, California. “I am now one of the Facebook admins for our page, and I am on the retreat planning committee,” she said. Members’ ages range from 30-85. “A few of us have gotten so close we get together in smaller gatherings a few times a year,” she said. “I have found my tribe in these women.”
The Chair
To the one who sat here so very long ago
Rooted, I daresay, with so many things to sow
Your needlework is etched upon the faded fabric
Where the story you convey, is interwoven magic…
Now the story on this fabric is ended and complete
I wonder at this chair I bought, to see myself sit there
Content with thread and needle, affixed to this old chair
Copyright © Rose Johnson | Year Posted 2023