Melinda from Family Business

I have known this week's Blogger of the Week since the beginning of 2016 although she has been blogging for much longer.  She always shows a nice variety of spooky stitching as well as Christmas stitching and chat about her family.  Not surprisingly, since she is Melinda and her blog is called:

Family Business

1. Please introduce yourself – name, where you are from, family, pets etc.

My name is Melinda, but my Grandmother (Dad’s mom) decided they were all going to call me Mindy (much to my mother’s disappointment) and it stuck.  I was born in the Western New York State, spent my 6th - 13th year in Ontario Canada and then moved back to Syracuse New York (Central) and I am still here.  I have six grown kids - sons (42, 40) and 4 daughters (34, 32, 29, 28).  11 Grandkids aged 22 - 1.  And I don’t think those kids of mine are finished yet.  Have one dog and one cat.

2. How long have you been stitching and how did you start?

My mom taught me to knit and embroidery when I was young.  You know I had to start making all those things for my hope chest.  My mom was so perfect in all she did, you can just imagine a right handed perfectionist teaching a left handed tomboy skills with needles.  But I didn’t actually start to cross stitch until 1988 when I was expecting my youngest. I was 35

3. How long have you been blogging and what inspired you to start?  Is there a story behind your blog title?

I started blogging 20^th February, 2010.  I created this blog to share all things about my life - so my blog is named Family Business.  It sort of was/is a hashtag we use.  It has evolved to more of just a stitching blog - with  few family or political references.  This has not been a constant thing - but I have tried to blog more consistently the past few years.

4. How would you describe your stitching style?  Are you a serial starter, a rotator, a OAAT (one at a time), highly organised, random and eclectic, etc.?

What day is it?  The one thing I am not is organised.  Too much organization in life makes me nervous.  I am random, totally random.

5. Do you have a favourite designer or style of design you are drawn to?

No, I don’t think so.  I love Primitive Hare - I also love Stoney Creek (I still subscribe to this magazine) and those designs are so far from primitive.  I can find a reason to stitch everything and anything.  But I think I am drawn to designs have spark a memory.  And I have 1000s of those.

6. Which piece are you most proud of in your collection?

This is really hard.  I think I would have to say a Christmas Stocking I finished in 2012 the chart was in one of those hard cover Christmas memories books.

7. What has been your worst stitching disaster?

I can’t think of any true stitching disaster I have had.  Nine times out of ten if it is a stitching mistake, I just figure out a way to edit the chart so I can keep on going. And I have been blessed to never have a mishap to something I am stitching.

8. Which new technique would you like to try, either stitching, finishing or another craft?

I am determind to learn more embroidery stitches.  And I want to knit a pair of socks and a sweater.  Upcoming retirement is prompting me to think of ways to keep learning new things - keeping the mind active

9. Do you have a box of finished-but-not-fully-finished pieces?  Or is everything FFO'd?  What's your favourite way to fully finish a project and what do you do with them?

Tons of things that are not finished.  So sad, in a box.  Here goes that retirement goal once again.  I have actually only started finishing things (besides framing) over the past couple of years.  So we will see where this takes me.

10. Which of your projects most represents "you"?

The me I am today its the 100 years project.  This was a terrible project for me to stitch however, the words ring so true to me.  And I wanted to stitch something to remind my kids of what is important. Now I just have to take it out of the box and fully finish it.

11. Tell us a secret about yourself.  Or a joke.  About anything!

I have no secrets, my life is an open book.  But I guess, since I can share anything and the name of my blog is Family Business, let me say this,  my family - we are a rainbow of different colors, we are straight and we are gay, we practice many different religions, or we don’t practice any at all, we are more than American, we are from Scotland, and England, and Africa and Jamaica. We are Family and we are all about our Business of making this world a better place.


I have no idea why the fonts are so different in this post!  Let's call it a design feature LOL.