With My Needle

This is the three-week anniversary of my blog. I guess one should never say “never” because I never thought that I would be writing a blog. Thanks to those who have encouraged me.

June is a big month for me. Not only is it my birthday month (and yikes—this will be a BIG one!), but it is also the anniversary of when I started designing 10 years ago. Although Tom had been encouraging me to try before then, it took a trip to Germany and England to see needlework with 10 needleworkers and 2 husbands to convince me to give it a try. It has been a magnificent “ride”. Thanks for your support.

I design things that I like and want hanging in my home. In fact, all of my framed models (which I stitch myself) are hanging in my home. The 3-dimensional pieces are in a glass-front bookcase.

Except for reproduction samplers, I consider a design a starting spot for you to do your own thing—I encourage you to change a project to suit yourself. Perhaps you don’t like a thread color or motif—change it!!

As I wrote in yesterday’s post, I also like to stitch things other than my own designs. This year I've finished a class project with my sampler guild from Cat’s Whiskers, the Ann Pennsylvania Peacock sampler from Little by Little (This is not a reproduction sampler, and my version has lots of changes--some accidental and some done on purpose), and most recently Dutch Beauty from Permin. Please don’t think I am a miracle stitcher or have turbo needles—I “finished” these pieces in 2009 but had started them in 2008.

Last night, I found myself going through Dutch Beauty withdrawal. I didn’t know what to stitch. I didn’t want to get too involved in anything knowing that my linen for Needleprint’s Mary Wigham will be arriving tomorrow and that I also will be working on a new WMN model, but I sure didn’t want to sit like “a bump on a log”.

I went through my mountain of WIPs….I think the mountain is growing every time I look at it. I started most of these projects more than 10 years ago, before I had even thought about designing. Heaven knows why they ended up as WIPs. Each project brought back fond memories…Dorcas Haynes from a class with Darlene O’Steen, The German Band Sampler from a class with Joanne Harvey, and so on. Most were less than half done and would require lots of time and concentration. I needed something much smaller and simpler.

I settled on Amy Eliza Herbert, a New Jersey Sampler from the DAR Museum collection, that was reproduced by the Porcupine Collection. I don’t even know when I began this piece, but I am guessing at least 15 years ago. It is nearly halfway done. My stitching has certainly improved over the years. It doesn’t look like I made much progress last night since I ripped out three of the dividing bands that didn’t look very good and replaced them. I’m now ready to stitch away waiting for my Mary Wigham linen.

Well…off to get the newsletter finished and then to take Dutch Beauty to Carol, my framer, who by the way is doing three of the Ackworth Friendship Books. I asked her if she realizes how much stitching she will have if everyone who stitches in her books asks her to do the same.

I believe every blog post needs at least one photo. Since I don't have an appropriate needlework photo, I leave you with a fairly recent photo of a very special young man in Chicago.