Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Getting back into the swing of things....

I thought you might enjoy seeing photos of my two most recently framed samplers. I stitched both before my surgery; it just took a while to get them photographed.

First is the Sarah Salter sampler that was reproduced by Sheepish Designs. This is such a sweet little sampler. I love the bright cheerful colors and the verse, Sara Salter worked this in the 8th year of her age...A present for her grandmother. Can you imagine how thrilled and proud little Sarah's grandmother must have been? I decided to dedicate my sampler to my two grandmothers so in an area that you can't see when the sampler is in its frame, I backstitched my name, city, the year, and the names of my two grandmothers.
Next is my Deborah Walker sampler. You may remember that I stitched this as a stitch-along with my friend, Carol. In my June 10th blog post I showed a photo of our two samplers in progress. Carol changed the linen, thread colors, and verse on her version. We'll be taking our samplers to our guild Christmas party. It will be fun to see the samplers side by side. Just a reminder that the Deborah Walker sampler is out-of-print. (The last time I showed a photo of my version, shops and stitchers contacted me about getting the chart.) Margriet from The Essamplaire has reproduced Deborah's sister's sampler which is very similar to Deborah's. Both girls were from Chester County, Pennsylvania, and their samplers reflect their Quaker background.

And last is my progress on Elizabeth Mears' sampler that was reproduced by Barb of Queenstown Sampler Designs. Although this will be a 2011 SAL for my newsletter, With My Needle and Pen, I jumped the gun! Elizabeth's sampler has been such a joy to stitch, and it has certainly given me back my stitching mojo after having not stitched for months.

These photos were taken several days ago, so I'm even further along now. I've completed the larger alphabet. The first row is stitched in rice stitches and the bottom one in eyelets (both thankfully over 4 linen threads). I've also stitched the eyelet band that separates the two alphabet bands and the band of cross stitches and four-sided stitches that are below the last part of the alphabet. I still haven't stitched the small alphabets because they look like "mindless" (almost non-thinking) areas that I can stitch when tired or traveling.Yes, it looks like I've made great progress...until you see how much linen I have left and also look at Barb's photo that I showed on November 13th. Regardless...I think that things are getting back to "normal". I'm back to waking up hours before Tom does and getting in a few hours of dedicated stitching.

6 comments:

Patty C. said...

Beautiful work !!!!!!!

Margaret said...

What lovely pieces! Just gorgeous! It's fun to see the colors in Elizabeth. She's a pretty one! Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Glad your stitching mojo has returned!

Catherine said...

Beautiful pieces!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Nancy said...

Your samplers are gorgeous Ellen! The Sarah Salter sampler does have beautiful colors. Happy Thanksgiving!

Sheila said...

They are lovely...glad you are getting back into the swing of things.

Katrina said...

Gorgeous!!!! And I love Elizabeth Mears, I have my chart ordered :-).

Glad things are getting back to normal.