At the Embroidery Association of Canada Seminar held in St. John’s, Newfoundland, this May, Marcella Pedersen of Cut Knife received second prize for her stitched picture of the Northern Lights and Inuksuk in the seminar theme competition.
The theme for this year was “Rock, Needle, Scissors.”
When Marcella first heard the theme, she wondered how on earth do you combine those three elements into embroidery piece? Within a day, she had her plan of the inuksuk with the scissors in the northern lights sky and the needle on the horizon.
Marcella Pedersen began stitching around age 10, learning her stitches in a sampler in the form of a Christmas tree.
At age 13, she embroidered seven tea towels with “Bees” - Bee Careful, Bee Loving, Bee Thrifty, etc. She also made a few pillow cases. At 19, she met her future husband, Gil, a beekeeper! Fate or destiny?
Her embroidery stalled until her late 20s when she joined the Thimble Nimbles Guild, a branch of the Saskatchewan Embroiderers Guild. She enjoys hardanger, surface, painting with threads, stumpwork, blackwork, ribbon, Brazilian, Battenburg, and gold work the most. She has done Swedish, filet lace, crossstitch and canvas work, gold foil, Mount Melick and Ukrainian.
She joined the Regina Stitchery guild to learn more techniques when Saskatchewan quit hosting workshops. Since 2004, the EAC Seminar has now become her annual holiday retreat.
This year she is working on Pulled Thread Hedebo Danish embroidery.
In 2009 and 2014, she won Third Prize Viewer’s Choice for her painting with threads picture “Sunrise, Sunset” and stumpwork “Hummingbird Blessings.”
Next year’s seminar will be held in Prince Edward Island.
