Needlepoint portrait

Years ago (about 45 or so), there was a company in California who made charts from photographs.  This was in the late 70s into the 80s.  Needle Nicely sent many photographs for customers; and I, also, did many needlepoints from their designs.  I did a German Shepherd for my then best friend; another item was a photograph of Trubey as an infant with her mother which I stitched and gave to her mother one year.  Another was done from the etching design of the logo of my brother's then lodge in the Southwestern mountains of North Carolina.  But, as far as I am concerned, the piece de resistance was the needlepoint portrait of me at 25 (my graduate degree photo from Appalachian).

The chart maker had a computer program that keyed 8 DMC floss colors or 8 DMC tapestry yarn colors.  I have the gold-leaf oval frame for this--I must take it to my framer.  In the upper right-hand corner, I have cut off where I have started a background stitch.  I'm going to ignore all that and have Donna put it into the oval frame without the background stitched. Maybe with some gold metallic placed behind so it shimmers through the unstitched areas.

Both the stitch portrait and the frame were uncovered when Needle Nicely unpacked the storage unit we had kept in Vero for the last 10 years.  Previous to that, they had traveled with us in boxes for years after we closed the Blowing Rock location of Needle Nicely.  I'm proud of how well we have managed to keep them because there are no signs of mildew, a miracle in Southern Florida!