Andy’s generosity perpetuated in cross stitch

Originally hailing from England, Andy who has travelled throughout Europe moved to Australia in 1971. Initially landing in Sydney, Andy moved to Canberra in 1983 where he stayed until 2004 when he moved to Mount Morgan so he could care for a good friend.

As a self-taught “cross-stitcher” Andy employed all tools available to him to improve on this craftincluding using “Google”. Andy is what you would call a “tech savvy senior”.

Andy often takes a photo of something and uses a computer program to develop the patterns for cross stitching - and this is how the cross-stitched steam locomotive came about following a visit to the Mount Morgan Railway Museum.

The generosity of people always amazes and this is certainly the case when Andrew “Andy” Hurt (pictured) donated a cross-stitched version of the Hunslet Steam Locomotive to the Railway Museum. This framed work now sits proudly on the wall at the Mount Morgan Railway Station.

Andy stumbled upon cross-stitching purely by accident over 30 years ago when he was inadvertantly sent a “how to cross stitch” book by Reader’s Digest instead of the book he normally received. While this misdirected mail proved beneficial for Andy, it was to be another 10 years or so before he took up crossstitching seriously.

When you consider that Andy has Parkinson’s Disease, and that these projects take him longer than most would take, his donation is precious indeed.

“It took me about 85-90 hours to complete this piece of work,” he said.

At 14 stitches to the inch (2.5 cm) the Huslett creation has over 1600 stitches.

“The cross stitching helps me with concentration,” he said.

Andy has completed birds, flowers and animals as well as designing kits for other people to use. He also makes jewellery and hand-coloured cards. Andy likes the challenge of completing the designs and is considering doing one of the Mount Morgan Stack.