Playing Catch Up

Wow!  It certainly has been a long time since my last blog post!  Time just seems to be going by so fast!

Tom and I decided to spend Thanksgiving in Jacksonville, Florida with his father.  The drive both going and returning was not particularly pleasant due to foggy and rainy weather, construction, heavy traffic, accidents, etc.  In fact, the drive in both directions took us several hours longer than usual.  I'm not able to stitch in the car so I knitted on prayer shawls for our church.  (I got one completed and made great progress on another.)

I took my Lucy Adams sampler (The Examplarery) with me to Florida, and I made great progress on her. My original plan was to make Lucy my "travel" sampler, but I enjoyed working on her so much that I couldn't put her down.  In fact, I was able to complete her this morning.  

According to the information included in the kit, Lucy was from Newbury, Massachusetts.  I love the trees on her sampler!  

At the bottom of the sampler, I backstitched my name, where I live, and the year 2013.  I didn't take time to chart out and center the information since it won't show once the sampler is framed.  In fact, I plan to have the frame touch the bottom edge of the side borders and the hillocks.

The next photos are of Kathrine Iones (also from The Examplarery).  A couple of weeks I showed you photos of the sampler which was nearly complete.  Since then, I added the satin-stitched sawtooth band, hemstitching, and the green silk satin ribbon.

The ribbon really is straight and not wavy like it appears in the photo.  Once the sampler is stretched for framing, it should look much better.

I'm now trying to figure out what will be my next project.

Does this linen give you an idea?  (The actual linen is quite a bit darker than in this photo.)

I plan to use it for Plum Street Sampler's Mary's Sampler.  It will be a perfect project to stitch during the Christmas season. I had been thinking of stitching this sampler on a dark linen, and then several weeks ago I saw a version that a member of my sampler guild was stitching on this linen.  She had dyed the linen herself. It was so gorgeous, so I asked her if she had any 36-count that I could buy.  She did!  Yippee!  The piece of linen was large enough for two of the samplers, so I cut it in half and gave the other piece to a good friend.

I have also pulled out Ann Hair (The Scarlet Letter).  Poor Ann has been on hiatus for quite some time.  I have made great progress on her, but I still have so much more to do!!  I just need to get remotivated.

Winter has definitely arrived! We have had three snowfalls in the last week and extremely cold temperatures. The snow is beautiful!  More snow is expected in the next couple of days.  Perhaps this year we'll have a white Christmas!