Editor:
I really enjoy Roberta Mc-Kern’s museum musings. The last one (Dec. 29) about a quilt interested me for different reasons than history. She assumes that mothers did the embroidery, because surely no boy, or child of 11 or 12, or a man would embroider.
I beg to differ. I knew a big Black man who cross-stitched a huge piece during chapel sermons for weeks. He did an impressively beautiful job. My son’s friend, hardworking Eli, 70, knits socks and mittens very nicely on rainy days.
George Washington Carver crocheted lace, doilies, his own tie, and knitted his socks and other things, as well as inventing a myriad of uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, cotton fiber, etc.
I got a beginner’s sewing set when I turned 6, and loved it. A couple of years later I embroidered a sofa cushion, and when I was 10 I sewed a yoked and gathered dress for my 19-inch baby doll. Heading off to college, I took another look at my childhood treasures and was impressed with the stitches, so neat and evenly spaced.
Joan Scofield
Sweet Home