The Queen City Sampler Guild 2014 Christmas Party

On Saturday I attended The Queen City Sampler Guild annual Christmas party. This is my local guild, and their party is always a fun time with lots of socializing, show-and-tell, an (optional) ornament exchange, lunch, and lots of door prizes.

Here are a few photos of the ornament exchange tree.

This year there was a Quaker challenge: stitch something Quaker during the year. I didn't participate because I have already stitched lots of Quaker samplers and other Quaker-inspired projects. In fact, there are already seven Quaker samplers (five Ackworth reproductions and two others) hanging in our bedroom. There are six more Quaker samplers hanging in my office (With My Needle models) and nine three-dimensional Quaker projects (sewing cases, boxes, books ,etc.) in a glass-front bookcase.

I thought you might enjoy seeing photos of some of the Quaker show-and-tell projects that were on display at the party.

In the photo above on the right, you can get a glimpse of An Emblem of Love (one of my designs) stitched by Sue H. I hope to soon get a better photo of her sampler so I can share her lovely work with you.

Charts for both multi-color and single-color versions of the design are included in the chart package. Sue B. stitched An Emblem of Love in two shades of blue and put the finished stitched piece in a Whitman candy tin.

Lynn K. stitched my Quaker Pattern Book for the guild Quaker challenge. She personalized the book cover with the year, our guild's initials, and also the words  "Quaker Challenge".

There were only a few non-Quaker projects on display.

Lynn K. also brought two of my other projects she had stitched. She told me that this was her With My Needle year. Here are her Strawberries So Fair and her Mrs. Waddelow's Huswif.

Earlier in the year I showed you two other With My Needle projects (A Lady's Worke Box and A Work'd Pocketbook) Lynn had completed. This year she also stitched Family Ties as a gift for her son and daughter-in-law. She didn't have the project with her on Saturday because she has already given it to them.

Last year I taught A Lady's Worke Box for my guild, and I was thrilled to see five completed ones on Saturday.

Here are some close-ups. First is Susan W.'s box.

Next is Ann M.'s box.

And here is Sue B.'s box.

This is Janis R.'s box. (I'm sorry that the photo of Janis' box is so blurry.)

And last is Diane L.'s box. (Janis and Diane are sisters.) Diane likes to make lots of changes to designs, and this project was no exception. Diane changed the color of the house from blue to yellow, and added a verse to the linen panel on the inside box lid.

It was so much fun to see the five boxes side by side!!

You may remember that several months ago I finished the Snooty Parrots sampler. Jana B. also stitched this sampler. Here is a photo of our two samplers side-by-side. I stitched mine on 36-count linen, and Jana used 40-count on hers. We both made some changes to the original design.

I co-founded the Queen City Sampler Guild in 1995, and January will mark our 20th anniversary. Many of us will be stitching a special five-part mystery sampler in commemoration. The sampler was designed by Theresa Baird, Heart's Ease Examplar Workes. We hope to have many completed ones on display at next year's Christmas party.

Hanging Out with My Sampler Friends

This past Saturday my sampler guild (The Queen City Sampler Guild) was thrilled to have Joanne Lukacher lecture on Norfolk samplers.  Many of you may recognize Joanne's name as the author of the book Imitation and Improvement: The Norfolk Sampler Tradition.  We were mesmerized by the beautiful images she showed us.  If you ever get the chance to hear Joanne lecture, make sure you take advantage of the opportunity.  You won't be disappointed.

After the lecture, Joanne signed copies of her book.

Joanne lectured in the morning, and in the afternoon we had a stitch-in.  Our guild decided to make Quaker samplers our focus for 2014, and here are photos of some of completed projects that were brought for "show and tell".

The photo above is my design An Emblem of Love, stitched by Sue B.  Sue decided to put her finished sampler in a very large Whitman Sampler candy tin that a friend had given her.  (I've never seen such a large Whitman Sampler tin!)

In addition to the Quaker projects, Lynn K. brought in her completed A Lady's Worke Box.  I taught this project at the guild last spring.

Lynn has been so kind in the past to let me share photos of her work on my blog.  I recently sorted some old photos and found some of Lynn's completed Work'd Pocketbook.  I had taken the photos at a monthly stitch-in before our trip and had neglected to show them to you earlier.  (Sorry, Lynn.)

Didn't Lynn do a beautiful job with both projects?

A Work'd Pocketbook has over 7000 queen stitches!  Yes, you read that correctly.  I've nicknamed this project  Not for The Faint of Heart. While this project is LOTS of work, I think you'll agree the results are well worth the effort!

At the stitch-in more than half the group was working on a Quaker project of their own choosing, but I neglected to take any photos.  I also noticed that Lynn K. was working on my Family Ties sampler, so perhaps in a few months I'll have a photo of that to share with you.

Three of us are working on the Snooty Parrots Sampler (from Barbara Ann Designs) as part of a Facebook SAL group.  Below is a photo of our samplers side-by-side.  Jana's is on the left, Lisa's is in the middle, and mine is on the right.  Jana and Lisa are using 40-count linen, and I'm using 36-count.

Here is a better view of mine.  Since Saturday, I've added the parrot on the right.

I hope your week is off to a great start.

Samplers, Friends, and Hot Cross Buns...Oh My!

What a great Queen City Sampler Guild meeting we had on Saturday! 

We had a very good turn out of folks to hear Darlene Anderson from Omaha, Nebraska speak on Adam and Eve Samplers.  Darlene gave us a lot of background information and then showed us images of lots and lots of Adam and Eve samplers she had stitched.  Most of the samplers were reproductions. 

Darlene stitched 141 (I think that's the right number) sampler ornaments in just one year!  She showed us pictures of her collection and brought many for us to see in person:



Darlene's ornaments are a combination of traditional Christmas ornaments and small samplers.  I had never thought of stitching something non-Christmasy as an ornament, but I found the idea wonderful.

Did you notice the cute little bags under the table?  Darlene brought door prizes.  Each bag contained a different Adam and Eve sewing case that Darlene had stitched!  WOW!!  Inside each sewing case was a pair of scissors.   We forgot until late in the day to have the lucky winners display their new treasure.  Some members had left early, but here are four of the wonderful cases!

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Then it was time for lunch.  Thanks to Lisa (The Inspired Stitcher), I knew that there was a sampler exhibit nearby (only 5 miles away) at the Warren County Historical Society.  Two car loads of us decided to check out the exhibit.

It was impossible to get any good photos because of the lighting and the glass on the frames and display cases.  I thought you might enjoy seeing some photos anyway.

The exhibit is dedicated to the memory of Sue Studebaker, an expert on Ohio samplers and author of two books on the subject.  It is hard to believe it's been over 5 years since Sue's most unexpected death. I saw copies of both of Sue's books in one of the exhibit showcases and in the museum gift shop.  If you don't have them, you might want to give the museum a call.

To read more about the exhibit and see more photos, check out Lisa's blog (The Inspired Stitcher).

Of course, we also had some time to stitch.  Here is Lisa.

Want to see what she's stitching?

I thought it was pretty cool that Lisa decided to stitch a piece with the same theme as our guild program.

And then, before we knew it, the meeting was over.  Afterwards, a few of us went out to dinner with Darlene.

I couldn't resist showing you one more photo.  This one is of hot cross buns at my church's Sunday coffee hour.  It has become a tradition to have them on Palm Sunday.  Don't they look yummy?