Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Oh that there were more hours in the day!

There's so much I want to get done, and there never seems to be enough time.  I guess lots of you may feel the same way.

I've started going through and sorting the boxes of photos I brought back from Orlando after my father died.  I'm making great strides but certainly still have a long way to go. I'm also going through old papers. 

Today I found a file with very old wedding announcements and invitations.  How much fun it was to read the announcements!  Years ago the announcements had so much detail. In particular,  I love reading the decscriptions of the wedding dresses and flowers.  One of the announcements I found today was dated December 4, 1901.  I wasn't sure who the bride was, but I suspected she was a relative because of the last name Justis, which is a family name on my mother's side of the family.  After a little digging on Ancestry.com, I discovered that the bride, Nannie Justis, was my grandmother's cousin. 

Hmm--I wonder what other treasures I'll find as I go through all the old papers and photos.

I've been making great progress on Hannah Lancaster (reproduced by The Porcupine Collection). 


Little Hannah was pretty regular when stitching her floral border.  But my goodness--when she got to her verse she was not consistent with the number of threads she skipped between the individual letters and words. This made it a bit challenging to stitch the verse and also to read it afterwards.  At first glance, the whole area appears to be just a jumbled mess of letters. Perhaps you can make out the verse (which is probably the one most often seen on old samplers).


 In the next photo you can see what I've stitched so far.  This is a pretty good-sized sampler.  I'm about at the halfway point.


Tonight I hope to start work on the very large house.  The thread colors look different than what is shown in the chart photograph, but I'm sure that in the end everything will work out okay.  (Keep your fingers crossed.)

My friend, Barbara, sent me this link to an article  in Antiques and the Arts Online about the recent Betty Ring needlework collection auction.  I found it very interesting to read a description of what was going on in the auction room.  From my computer, I could tell that most of the items were bought by just a couple of bidders.  However, all that I could see on my computer was the auctioneer.  I hope you'll find the article as interesting as I did.  I've printed off a copy and will put it in my catalog along with the sale price list.

Well, time to get back to sorting through photos and papers to see what new treasures I can find.

14 comments:

Meari said...

What a beautiful sampler. I agree... we need more hours in a day!

Chocolates4Breakfast (Terri Malinovich) said...

My goodness, Ellen! You have made great progress on the sampler. It will be gorgeous when done. What fun to look thru all those old papers! I love all that sort of thing and find it so interesting. Off now to check that link; I'll print it and keep it with my catalog, as well.

Margaret said...

Love Hannah -- she's looking great! And thanks for the link to that article. Sounds interesting -- I'm off to peruse it.

Laurie in Iowa said...

Your Hannah is looking wonderful.

Faye said...

Hannah is just beautiful Ellen....I am eyeing which sampler I want to stitch next! hmmmmm...

Elizabeth said...

The piece is looking great! I have to agree with you, though, on her wording - looks like a run-on sentence! I love ancestry.com when you find interesting connections like that. As my grandfather and his sister go through their things, they often send me old newspaper clippings about family members and sometimes it'll have their addresses, so I know where they were living in our hometown - always a fascinating adventure!

Patti-Rocky Mtn Stitcher said...

This is beautiful!

Robin at The Primitive Hutch said...

Your sampler is beautiful and amazing all at the same time.
It sure will be pretty when you get it all done.
Oh what fun to go through a box of history ~ have fun with it.
Prim Blessings
Robin

Mouse said...

oooo lovely sampler and I did have problems reading the verse eeekkk ... isn't it nice when you find these treasures .. much better announcements in those days than we have now ....
love mouse xxxx

Nancy said...

Beautiful stitching! Yes, more hours in a day would be wonderful...if only I didn't need a good 8 hours of sleep at night I could get so much more done!

Barb said...

Your sampler is just lovely! Have fun with all those old family photos.

krayolakris said...

Ellen, your sampler is beautiful and really coming along nicely. I also enjoy the formality of writing from early last century. Thanks for the link regarding the auction.

Teri said...

What beautiful progress you're making on Hannah!

Robin said...

A truer title there couldn't be! More hours in the day and more days in the week. Your progress is looking great and this will surely be a looker when it is done. I want to thank you for your encouragement while I assemble my Etui! I decided to frog oneside on the assembly today at lunch so I have taken a step back but all is well. I hope to finish it up in the next week but darn that thing called work keeps getting in my way!
Robin