Not your grandmother’s needlepoint
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Renee Seidman, left, and Michele Mandel have created a Judaica room in their needlepoint store. |
Michele Mandel and Renee Seidman, co-founders and owners of the Bergenfield needlepoint store Gone Stitching, developed their love for stitching in different ways -Mandel through classes taken as an adult, and Seidman as a child who “grew up around it. My mother was a master quilter, and she and my grandmother did some kind of handwork every night,” she said.
The two women, whose three-year-old business offers classes and materials in needlepoint, embroidery, and ribbon work, continue to take high-level classes themselves “to keep our skills up,” said Seidman, adding that the store is unique in having “an entire room devoted to Judaica. About 85 percent of our business is Judaica,” she added, noting that in July, she and Mandel will publish a book on stitches for Judaic canvases.
Seidman pointed out that needlepoint, like every type of artwork, has changed over the years, with different stitches and threads finding their way into the same project. From Oct. 27 through Dec. 15, the owners of Gone Stitching will teach these techniques at the JCC on the Palisades. According to Seidman, the class – “Not Your Grandmother’s Needlepoint” – will include more than 10 new stitch patterns and a variety of threads.
“We’ll teach how to pick stitches that work in a particular area or on a particular canvas,” she said. “Every thread has its own ‘kink.’ You have to know how to use the threads themselves.”
For more information or to register for the JCC class, call (201)569.7900, ext. 463.
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