A heartwarming Twitter thread about finding an unfinished embroidery project at an estate sale.

The Morning News https://ift.tt/2NdQesP

Shannon Downey was at an estate sale when she found the beginnings of a massive quilting project that Rita Smith, its recently deceased owner, appears to have started when she was 99. Determined to see the project to completion, Downey tapped into her Instagram community, where more than 1,000 people volunteered to embroider sections of the quilt. In the process, people also began researching to find out more about Smith, and even found her high school yearbook photo.

A story... (in proper thread form)

I go estate sale shopping regularly and whenever I find an unfinished embroidery project I buy it and finish it bc there’s no way that soul is resting with an unfinished project left behind. One day I found this stunner for $5. The I walked pic.twitter.com/2zIzTsRuSI

— Shannon “Badass Cross Stitch” Downey (@ShannonDowney) October 23, 2019

You can follow the progress at #RitasQuilt on Instagram.

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I am LOVING how my part of #RitasQuilt is turning out so far—and such an experiment in stitching! This is the first “realistic” #embroidery piece I’ve done, and I am so happy with it!! The apple blossoms are first outlined in backstitch, then satin stitched (I added lines in the petals to guide the direction of my stitches), and then details are added. Leaves are with a variegated floss (a la my “Not Today Satan” piece, and the main stem will be a greyish-brown in a stitch method TBD. American robin stitch method TBD.

A post shared by Sarah Tafelsky (@sarahtafelsky) on Oct 16, 2019 at 7:13pm PDT

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