Getting the (needle) point

Iva Dene McCleary did not fall in love with needlepoint the first time she tried it.

"That was about 30 years ago. I had a friend who did it, so I bought a bell pull to do. It had a colored design that you filled in with the same stitch. And it was so boring."

Years later, after an accident had put her in a body brace, "and I had to find something to do," she turned to it again. And what she discovered was that in the meantime needlepoint had undergone a renaissance of sorts. There were so many more options: a wider variety of threads, new canvases, new stitches, contemporary designs.

This time, McCleary got hooked. "I love the creativity," she says.

Like many art forms, needlepoint has evolved over the centuries. "It is one section of the wide world of embroidery," says Margene Smith, president of the Salt Lake Needlepoint Guild. Embroidery is one of the oldest decorative arts and one that crosses all cultures.

Needlepoint was called "canvas work" until the 19th century because of the heavy background that was used. Many needle-arts historians point to the 17th century as the origin of needlepoint as we know it today. That was when the popularity of furniture upholstered with embroidery led to the development of more durable materials as the foundation.

Today, those canvas forms are still used, but, says Smith, you are also likely to see a lot of linen, silk and softer cotton backgrounds.

It was in the early 1980s that "needlepoint became more of an art form rather than the utilitarian work that Grandma did," she says. A wider variety of threads and materials became available, and stitchers began experimenting not only with those but also with techniques drawn from other needle-art styles.

It is not surprising that the Salt Lake Needlepoint Guild — which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year — has grown up along with those changes. As has its parent organization, the American Needlework Guild.

ANG was started in 1970, when a group of needlepointers met at the Episcopal Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Ala., to do needlepoint kneelers for the church, explains JoAnn Jackson, national secretary of ANG, who lives in Plano, Texas. The guild was formally incorporated in 1972.

"We now have chapters in every state, with a membership holding fairly steady at around 10,000." And, she adds, "this is not just a group of old women. We have a lot of younger women, even some men."