Acknowledgements

This project could not have been done without the support of the wonderful people and communities listed below.

Thank you to my amazing colleagues:

• Paulina Borrego, from the University of Massachusetts Science and Engineering Library. You helped me turn this little idea into a reality. Your guidance and support as my project manager for the exhibit helped make this a success, and your management of my timeline, the process and the space made this truly magical and fun! Your gentle care framing the flat stitched pieces is the glue that made the final stretch happen! I couldn’t have done the exhibit without you.
• Jess Lajoie, also from the Science and Engineering Library, who helped me with a lot of physical labor in getting the exhibit up and ready. From wrangling the hanging system to printing out labels for every single piece, Jess was my right hand! Thank you!
• The rest of my colleagues from the Science and Engineering Library at UMass: Marcia Burkavage, Anne Graham, Ellen Lutz, Melanie Radik and Rebecca Reznik-Zellen! You have been so welcoming, interested, helpful and supportive. Also the occasional ice cream was a nice bonus.
• Erin Jerome, another longtime UMass colleague and friend, for your wisdom and guidance on permissions, PressBooks and more.

Thank you to Amanda Mack, from the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Not only did you submit a really beautiful piece of stitchery, but your offer to proofread and edit all of the front matter sections and the acknowledgements was such a huge help. Thank you for finding all of the typos and weirdly worded sentences after my brain went haywire!

I send sincere and heartfelt gratitude to every single metadata creator who made something beautiful for this exhibit. Your stories and creativity were more than I ever could have hoped for. I can’t believe we organized and created all of this virtually. I hope I get to meet some of you and stitch together in person one day.

Extra special thanks go to my husband, Lee Morrissette. He helped me to iron and photograph every single embroidered piece I received. Since none of you know how truly terrible I am at ironing, this may not seem like a huge deal. But his patience and care with so many of these pieces helped make the actual display a success. An architect by trade and artist when he chooses, he also sketched the portrait that is the basis for my embroidered self-portrait in the Aboutness section.

I virtually met so many library workers, supporters and makers around the world who cheered this project on! I have constantly felt awed by the interest this strange idea has attracted. Thank you all.

And finally, thanks to Badass Cross Stitch and the SewCrafty community for the inspiration and encouragement to try something new. Wow–look at what I started!