Episode 1: Shay Pendray: Stitcher, Businesswoman, Cowgirl

Shay Pendray may be best known as the host of The Embroidery Studio and Needle Arts Studio and author of The Needleworker’s Companion. Having visited Japan to learn the techniques of Japanese embroidery over 18 years, she is recognized as an expert in this art form. Shay owned Needle Arts, Inc., a group of retail stores in southern Michigan specializing in needlepoint, thread, and Japanese embroidery. She continues to teach needlepoint near her home in Michigan. Shay was a student at Henry Ford’s Edison Institute school, which taught children in grades K through 12 from 1929 to 1953. It was located in Greenfield Village (now part of the Henry Ford Museum), which now houses a working weaving studio including an operational Jacquard loom. Shay and her horse, Einstein, participate in a cattle drive in Wyoming each year, as reported in USA Today. To learn more about Hardanger embroidery, see “Needlework to Do When Loneliness Comes: Anna Anderson’s Hardanger Tablecloth” by Laurann Gilbertson, and “A Hardanger Coaster to Stitch” by Joan Leuenberger. Download a copy of the November/December 2012 issue of PieceWork to read more about Hardanger in Laurann Gilbertson’s article, “Needlework to Do When Loneliness Comes: Anna Anderson’s Hardanger Tablecloth.”