Mary Beale: How long have you been stitching?  Who taught you to stitch?

Mary Natwick: "I have been doing embroidery since I was 10 when my grandmother and mother taught me,and I have been doing cross-stitch for about 30 years now. I have taken classes from many people but my favorite teachers are Eileen Bennett, Merry Cox, and Joanne Harvey."

Mary Beale: Do you mainly cross-stitch or needlepoint?

Mary Natwick: "I do cross-stitch only and my favorite are the reproduction pieces."

Mary Beale:  Do you stitch mainly for yourself or others?

Mary Natwick: "For many years, I stitched for others. Now I stitch one piece a year for each of my 3 grown children and for us...a few friends, too."

Mary Natwick: "These stockings are the biggest project I have undertaken. It has taken me 5 years to complete the 8 of them with many other pieces thrown into the rotation as well. These stay with us and will be given to the "children" when I die or decide otherwise. They are so beautiful to look at that they go up the day after Thanksgiving and stay until I de-decorate sometime about the middle of January each year. I did use some specialty fibers on a few and substituted long-arm cross and herringbone for some of the rows of cross-stitch. I even managed to get queen stitches on most of the stockings."

Mary Beale: Which Mary Beale design have you stitched?  Have you stitched more than one?

Mary Natwick: "Just the stockings so far, and maybe one small piece from one of the Notebooks."