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Ferndale Victorian seaport cross-stitch art comes in a kit  
byNancy Only

In the 1960s in San Francisco Nancy Spruance found herself fascinated by the city's Victorian houses. "I liked the way they were built, the way they looked, the details, the history. Everything about them appealed to me," she said.

In 1984, living in Eureka and doing freelance charting for a company that produced needlework kits, she learned the Carson Mansion was preparing to celebrate its centennial. The rest, as they say, is history.

"I'd been working with needlepoint. But when I began doing cross-stitch I found that it had quarter stitches. That allowed me to put in so much more detail." The end results amply demonstrate the value of her techniques.

Her line, Nancy Spruance Designs, now features 15 kits of Victorian house designs, many of them familiar to local residents. The Pink Lady, the Simpson-Vance House, and the Blue Victorian (formerly the Elegant Victorian Bed and Breakfast) join the Carson Mansion in representing Eureka. The Gingerbread Mansion and Linden Hall, both in Ferndale, round out the North Coast selections.

But there's more. The Spruances have traveled widely, and so her kits include landmarks in such areas as Connecticut, Texas and Washington state. In addition, she has several kits of miniatures from San Francisco and Cape May, New Jersey. One kit includes add-ons so that the cross-stitcher can personalize the scenes with a choice of fences, lampposts and other details.

"When I began adding details," she admitted, "I wasn't sure how they'd go over. But people seemed to like them, so I kept adding them." The finished products benefit artistically from the additions. She points out a technique called "tweeding" which involves the combining of light and dark fibers that she has employed successfully to bring out color variations in the foliage gracing the Gingerbread Mansion landscape.

As a bonus, each house kit comes with a card that tells the story of that house. "I always make a point of talking to the owners," she said. "Sometimes the brochures contain misinformation. By speaking to the owner I get a more accurate history to pass on."

The accuracy of both the stories and the artistic details result in a superior product which cross-stitchers must take delight in working and pride in displaying. Nancy Spruance Designs speak to the spirit of lovers of Victorians everywhere.

Locally the kits can be seen at Times Remembered in Ferndale or on Spruance's web site at www.nspruance.com.

Nancy Only of Eureka is herself a quilter who delights in recreating images of Eureka's Old Town in her work.

One-time article Copyright 2000 by Humboldt Senior Resource Center.