New Britain herald., 1928-05-25
She's Mistress of Vanishing Art
Landscapes Portraits Copies Old Masters
 Enie George Who Will Circle
(BY JULIA BLANCHARD)

(BY JULIA BLANCHARD) New York. May e5.-Most women travel to far reaches for the TO- nance of new sights. But Mrs. Enie George has gone to Thibet Tahiti. Zamboango. South Africa. Mexico's interior and other strange places just to learn work stitches.
 She really is landscape and por- trait artist who uses homespun linen for a canvas and needle and silk threads for her brushes and paints. And in addition she can copy any antique piece of hand work you can show her in any museum!
 Her pictures" Of such famous English places as the Ann Hatha- way cottage differ from paintings only in that they are apt to be even more natural looking. For the sheen of silk somehow seems to catch the suns gleam. the flowers bloom and the brown cottages smooth surface in a most lfe-like ! manner.
 An American Exhibition Hanging now at the Hotel Roose- Welt are some of her pictures colorful English gardens with gay primroses. hawthorn, daffodils, and other favorites: vistas of green fields 1 beyond an arched gate: f1agstone l paths leading down old fashioned gardens and other alluring views. Each is made, stitch by stitch, with hne needle and very fine silk | thread. One garden uses 5s differ ent greens. each shading into the next so skillfully that all one notices is the light and shadow of mid-af- ternoon
 l For years stitchery has been hobby with Mrs. George. She is, so far as Is known, the only woman in America today who can make land scapes and portraits with a needle and thread. There are about six or l seven such needle-women in Eng land. which. incidentally. is Mrs. Georges home. But expert stitchery | is too painstaking an art for many women 10 take up professionally or for an avocation.
 From the "Old Masters"
 "I inherited my love of stitchery," Mrs. George tells one in her clipped English tones My father was an embroidered. Though I have never learned to sew a seam or make any kind Of garments I could embroider doilies. antimacassars, pin-cushions, soft pillows and other things, in many fancy stitches, when I was very little girl.
 When I grew older, stitchery fas- cinated me. So I took course after course at the South kensington Museum. I met there a Miss Mead, an S6-year-old woman who was trained when a child by Helbronner. the greatest needle-man England | ever had He was the one respon- sible back before Victoria's reign for l broidery. This old lady taught me to sew portraits and landscapes"
 Mrs. George not only took the l equivalent to a college course in 1 stitchery, but post graduate work as we'll.
 Hundreds of Stitches
 She can make all the fine laces- l and so on. as we'll as do the 30 ff- | ferent Jacobean stitches, the 35 or | so church stitches, more than a dozen in gold work, various ap- | plique ones, all the Florentine class. | the Crewell and others which are , called mechanical. She knows sev- eral hundred different ones.
 Stitchery always has been an ayo- cation with Mrs. George. though | now she has come here to paint" with needle and thread some of Americas millionaire homes. She will show you her collection of pieces. Of little picture of a cottage. she will say, T did that on trip in 1920 to Australia An other represents winter spent in | India, still another a trip to Green land.
 Her Side Amusement
 Stitchery. as a matter of fact, has been music. tlA drama, reading and al lother amusement and relaxation , to Mrs. George. She can get as excited over hearing of a stitch she does not know as a collector can over an old master. nedly discovered. "Stitchery has meant so much 10 | me that it hurts me to think it will some day be a lost art" she says This machine age has almost ob- i liberated it. The rush leaves one no time for quiet reflection, needle in hand.
 But should like to say word , before it is too latte about the peace and satisfaction that comes from good needlework. It is well worth the years of effort one puts into it.''