I’d been itching to learn how to needlepoint for years. Needlework is an important part of female community and creative traditions, and my family is no exception. My Momma has a needlepoint stocking for each member of our family, and they’re precious to her. She gets them out every Christmas and hangs them above the fireplace. I’m pictured as a little girl angel on mine. Even though I’m all grown up and have a home of my own, Momma won’t give me my stocking.

“It’s too special,” she says. “What if you lose it?” I think she treasures it because it reminds her of a different time. On the stocking, at least, I’m still a little girl.

I learned needlepoint so I could participate in that family tradition. Having recently completed my doctorate in U.S. women’s literature at TCU, I also wanted to try a new hobby that didn’t involve reading or writing. But I have come to realize that needlepoint is just another way that women write our life stories.

When I took a class at a local needlepoint store, the shop bell rang all afternoon as women stopped in to buy more thread, ask advice about a piece, or chat about their families. The store is a community center of sorts, a place where women gather to sew and talk, recount stories and build friendships.

Needlework gives women a way to stitch together friendships by inviting dialogue and storytelling. At first, others merely inquired about my piece – “Is it needlepoint or counted cross stitch? What are you going to do with it?” they asked.

Such questions are really introductions into a deeper conversation. As women tell me stories about their own needlework, they inevitably turn to family and community. My friend Jenny proudly showed me a needlepoint rug made by her grandmother, all the while sharing special stories about her grandmother’s life. Charra told me that after her father died, she needlepointed a kneeler, which she donated to her church in his memory. One of my students proudly told me that a needlepoint Christmas tree ornament his mother designed is part of the White House collection. For these people, as for me, needlework fosters remembrance and storytelling.

The stories also remind me that our feminine pastimes can be political as well as personal. My friend Nadia, an advocate for the National Domestic Violence Hotline, knits scarves as she takes calls from women seeking refuge from domestic violence. Women of all education levels, socioeconomic backgrounds, races, and ethnicities call the Hotline seeking relief from horrific violence. As she listens to callers from across the country, Nadia imagines that she’s knitting their stories into her scarves. These scarves allow her to collect the stories and honor the tellers as they dare to reach out for help. Her knitting also helps her deal with her own secondary trauma, the effect of listening to the tales of such suffering day after day.

All this stitching and storytelling has brought me back to my favorite texts by women writers. I’ve been reminded of Celie and Sofia piecing the sister’s choice quilt in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. I’ve been thinking about the Awful Grandmother’s caramelo rebozo in Sandra Cisneros’s Caramelo, about how the Awful Grandmother clung to the rebozo as the only connection to her deceased mother and the female tradition she lost when her mother died. Needlework binds and comforts and heals women in literature and in life, creating a female community that expands far beyond my own circle of friends.

With my own needlework, I am creating pieces of art that are part of my story, my heritage, my memory. My needlepoint connects me with my family and the female creative tradition, a tradition that extends far beyond my circle of family and friends. Needlepoint invites others to tell me their stories, initiates a feminine dialogue about women and community. And so I stitch together ties with women in our community.

A version of Margaret Lowry’s ’03 PhD essay appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.