I'm Still Around! Really I Am!

Just a quick update to let you know that I'm still around.  I've just been very busy.

A couple of weeks ago, I sent the charts for my two new samplers, Of Female Arts and Elizabeth Wood, to the shops on my automatic shipment program.  Thank you very much for your enthusiasm for my new designs.  I appreciate your kind words more than you can possibly know.

Also last month, I shipped the kits for my Fruit of the Vine class to New Zealand for an upcoming class. The good news is that the first box arrived with no problems.  Keep your fingers crossed that the second box will arrive shortly.  I sent a couple of extra kits, so if you're interested in attending the class contact Sherelyn as soon as possible.  

The Austin Stitchery Guild in Austin, Texas is now taking registrations for two  classes, A Lady's Worke Box  and  Long May She Wave on May 31 and June 1. Contact Lauretta if you're interested in attending either class.

Photos and detailed class descriptions are on the teaching page of my website. You must be in class in order to get the class kits.

Other news....Over the weekend, our son and his family moved into their new home (about 10 minutes away from us).  Tom helped with the actual moving, and three-year old Garrett spent the time with me.  I think I got the better end of the deal,  don't you?

Yesterday I was finally able to get together with my framer, Carol, and I picked up three pieces from her.  I thought you might like to see them.

First is Kathrine Jones, a reproduction sampler from The Examplarery.  The beautiful green ribbon was included in the kit.  I haven't yet figured out where she'll hang as my walls are getting pretty full.

Next is Lucy Adams, also from The Examplarery.  I've hung Lucy in my downstairs half-bath. She is in good company with Mary Victor, Rachel Ellis,  John Foster, Eliza Herbert, and Rachel Hyde.

I also picked up my variation  of Mary's Sampler, a mystery sampler from Plum Street Samplers. I'm sorry that this sampler didn't photograph very well.  I wish you could see it in person. The gold frame is just perfect.  I'll probably display this sweet  little piece on an easel  during the Christmas season.

I'm continuing on my quest of completing Ann Hair from The Scarlet Letter.  I didn't fulfill my goal of completing her last year, but  I'm getting pretty close. 

Here are two photos.  The first one shows one of the deer.  The directions weren't real clear on what to do, so I tried to use my best judgement.  (I had  hoped to find a clear photo of the antique and contacted the Fitzwilliam Museum who owns the sampler. Unfortunately, they no longer have a good photo of the sampler, and it would have cost me more than $60 to have one made.  I decided to pass on that.)

The next photo shows the sampler nearly completed. I  had had a hard time figuring out what was done for the grassy area  on the original sampler. (I took the photo before stitching the deer.)

You probably are thinking, it looks like she is nearly finished. I'm afraid not!  I took two steps backwards! What I mean by that is that I decided that I didn't like the grass.  I hemmed and hawed as to what to do.   The satin stitch grass had taken forever!  I had stitched it using a single ply of silk thread, but in order to get good coverage, I repeated each leg.  As you can imagine that was very time consuming!  I ended up last Thursday taking out all of the satin stitches.  I'm now restitching the grass doing something similar to what I had done for the deer.  I'm much happier with the results, but the process is very time-consuming.

Hopefully in my next blog post you'll see a photo of the completed sampler.   I know that my version is not a true reproduction...I'm calling it an adaptation.