Part of my sampler addiction.....

Some of you have expressed interest in seeing my Quaker "gals" hanging together. Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen for a while.

My original plan was to hang my Quaker samplers in a corner of our family room, but that was before Mary Wigham came along and before I finished Dutch Beauty which turned out to be even larger than I thought it would be once it was framed. With 31 samplers hanging in our family room, there simply isn’t enough room for all the Quaker “gals” to hang out together. My new plan is to hang the Ackworth “gals” upstairs in our bedroom. However, I want to stitch Mary Busby before hanging the other three.

Meanwhile sweet little Rachel Ellis (from Westtown School) will remain downstairs and wait for Deborah Walker (from the Chester County Historical Society). Rachel, I’m afraid that it may be a long wait. There are others samplers and projects ahead of you in the queue.

I don’t know when or how I caught the “Quaker fever”. I guess it all began with Maria Spence (from The Essamplaire). I got the kit for this sampler at the first Ackworth seminar. After stitching Maria, I thought “Well, I’ve done one Quaker medallion sampler. Now to move on to another sampler type.” But then, I saw Ann Trump (from Needleprint), and I particularly like that she is shaped differently, rectangular, from most of the others I’ve seen. Then at the last Ackworth seminar, I "met" Mary Busby (from Needlelace) and fell in love with her beautiful colors. And then along came Mary Wigham (also from Needleprint), and I got caught up in the enthusiasm of the SAL. I really like that both Marys stitched “Ackworth School” on their samplers.

Maria, Ann, and Mary Wigham are framed and just waiting on Mary Busby. I put the three on the bed in my daughter’s room to patiently wait. Earlier today, I started studying their similarities. It was fun to find so many of the same motifs on the samplers. For example, both Ann and Mary Wigham have the same motif in the upper left-hand corner. On Mary Busby, that motif is also along the top but it is the third one from the left. Ann and Mary Wigham both stitched the same strange squirrel. Maria and both Marys stitched the same motif of a pair of birds facing each other. Of course, there are many more similarities between the four samplers.

Early this morning, I finished stitching on my newest model, Quaker Sampling III, and am now between model stitching so I picked up Mary Busby and started work on her. I don’t think I’ll get very far with her in the next few days before beginning stitching on another model, but I really want to get her stitched soon so I can hang the four Ackworth samplers together. Anyone have some ideas on how I can stitch faster?