Thursday, December 20, 2012

Out With the Old and In With the New Is Not Always a Good Thing!

My friend Carol suggested that we once again do a two person reproduction sampler SAL.  The sampler we chose is Sarah E. Pope which was reproduced by Sheepish Designs.  I'm not sure how long ago the sampler was reproduced, but it must have been quite a while ago because the chart is numbered 4 and the symbols are all hand drawn.  (What an undertaking that must have been!)

Sarah stitched her sampler in 1773, and it now belongs to the Newport (Rhode Island) Historical Society.  The main focus of the sampler is a large house in the center with trees on either side. 

There are five wonderful verses.

Duty fear and love we owe to good above. 

Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain but a woman that feareth the lord she shall be praised.

Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her own works praise her in the gate.

Give frist to god the flowr of thy youth take for thy guide the holy word of truth adorn thy soul with grace price wisdom more than all the pearls upon the indian shore.

Labour for peace chuse to contend with none let reason with sweet calmness keep the throne treading fierce wrath and lawless passions down the grace of mekness is a womans crown.
  
I started stitching my version a few days ago, but lo and behold I have discovered that some of the DMC thread colors have changed dramatically.  For example DMC 3072 was described as Light Blue on the chart, and today the same thread number is described as Very Light Beaver Gray.  Yikes!  On the chart DMC 535 is described as Dark Purple, but today it's described as Very Light Ash Gray.  Yikes!
  
Here is what I'm facing.
DMC #            New Color Description       Old Color Description
310                 Black                                        Black
407                 Dark Desert Sand                  Rose
433                 Medium Brown                      Rust
435                 Very Light Brown                  Light Rust
452                 Medium Shell Gray               Light Purple
500                 Very Dark Blue Green          Dark Green
501                 Dark Blue Green                     Light Green
535                 Very Light Ash Gray              Dark Purple
610                 Dark Drab Brown                    Brown
739                 Very Light Tan                       Cream
744                 Yellow-Pale                              Yellow
924                 Very Dark Gray Green           Dark Blue
935                 Dark Avocado Green              Medium Green
950                 Light Desert Sand                   Light Pink
951 and 739                                                      Creamy Pink
3024               Very Light Brown Gray         Light Gray
3032               Medium Mocha Brown          Tan
3072               Very Light Beaver Gray         Light Blue

As you can see, I'm faced with quite a challenge.  I've tried to find a conversion between the old DMC thread colors and the new ones, but I haven't had any luck so I'm having to rely on the chart cover photo for guidance.  I seem to be doing a lot of stitching, frogging, and restitching.  I'm sure it will be worth it in the end.

If anyone has recently stitched this sampler and was able to discover the new thread numbers, please let me know.

Sorry this photo isn't better--I was too lazy to go downstairs and get my camera so I just took this one on my tablet.  I'll take a better one once I've made more progress.

11 comments:

Phyllis said...

Wish I could help,but I've been looking for that very chart. You are lucky to have it. Hope someone can help with the colors.

C Street Samplerworks said...

What a fun SAL, Ellen, and what a lovely sampler!

I seem to remember that Emli's ( www.emlis.com )now has the rights to Sheepish Designs charts, so if anybody is looking for the Sarah E Pope chart, that would be a good place to start.

Anonymous said...

oh, this has been on my list to do and in my stash for a while. I better get started too.
Interesting about the thread conversion....I have some old DMC....I will have to do some investigation too. If I discover anything interesting I will pass it on.

Annie Beez said...

Wow its going to be so beautiful!

Roberta said...

This is a lovely design and I understand your pain with the color changes - good luck.

Merry Christmas

Diane said...

Hi Ellen, I sent you a longish email last night with the information you're looking for.
Cheers!

woolwoman said...

Gosh Ellen - sounds daunting but it sure is a beautiful sampler. Hope you and your family have a great christmas. Cheers Melody

Margaret said...

Oh my gosh, seriously? How old is the chart? How discouraging! I hope you share what you ended up using with us as I would love to stitch this one someday. Sorry I can't be any help at all.

Nicola said...

It is such a pretty sampler it will be worth all the trouble getting the colours right

Marjo said...

I have looked a this to start for a while but did not think about the thread color changes. If you find out please share, I would love to put the conversion to he new with the chart, What color fabric are you using? It looks lovely.

Karen said...

Ellen, I think you should just ignore the color descriptions and use the color numbers listed. I remember reading years ago that different designers choose to call the DMC colors by however they see them and you can end up with a different description depending on who does the describing.
For example, 452 is gray, but I always thought it had a slight lavendar look to it. Which explains why one person calls it medium shell gray and another person calls it light purple. But the 452 produced years ago will be the same as the 452 produced today, it just might be called something else. It really hasn't changed other than the possibility of a very slight variation between dye lots, the basic color will be the same!