The 4th Wise Man

In September 2003, having been to an American Needlepoint Guild Seminar two years earlier in Washington DC, we went back again. Work, distance and cost kind of got in the way of going in 2002.
Seminar 2003 was held in Lexington, Kentucky and I knew it was going to be an interesting adventure. To start with, after a long flight, then a short flight, we arrived in Lexington late in the evening. We were waiting for the shuttle to our hotel. (OK, I was standing outside, in my kilt, having a sly cigarette - Jane-Beth, being much more sensible than I, was in the air conditioned terminal building.) A gentleman, presumably local, came along. He was in blue-jeans, cowboy boots, cowboy hat, all but the six-guns and holsters. As he came past he stopped, looked at me and declared "You ain't from around here, are you boy?" then he walked on. I managed not to break up with laughter until he was out of sight. Really, it wasn't what I was expecting, but it got the visit off to a jolly start.

The 4th Wise Man was the first class I took at Lexington. It was taught over two days by Dorothy Lesher and it took me from September to December to finish it.

If you don't know the story, basically, Atraban (that's him) is on his way to join the three Magi but he gets side-tracked because he spends some of the treasure he was taking to Bethlehem on helping others. There are various versions of the story, but they all have him spending all his treasure on other people and never getting to Bethlehem. The embroidery shows Atraban with his last piece of treasure, a pearl, in his hand.

It was the technique. not the story, that attracted me to this class. The background is not stitched, but drawn in with watercolour pencils. I hadn't even thought of doing such a thing, never mind tried it, so I had to have a go.
There were also tassels (never made one before this) and twisted cords (same), so apart from some new stitches there were three new techniques. I didn't know whether I would ever use these techniques again but I'm glad I have them in my armoury (if I can remember how to do it!).

This was the first time Jane-Beth and I had been in the same class. We hardly spoke the whole time, and we were sitting where we couldn't see each other's work, but we both managed to make the same mistake with the starting point of the brick pattern. Spooky!