The walls in Lee McLeron’s South Hill home are covered with framed needlework – her own creations, products of a skill she learned at the tender age of 4. “I lived with my Scottish grandmother,” she recalled. “After nap, you had tea and then you worked.” Her grandmother taught her to darn, “but I flunked tatting,” she said with a smile. However, she felt at home with needle and thread in her hands, and needlework became a lifelong passion. In the early 1990s, she grew intrigued with the ancient art of Japanese silk embroidery. Though the craft has a more than 1,000-year history, it was fairly new to the Western world at the time.
