Oh deer, a new sampler

I was very sick last week with something like the flu…it wasn’t Covid…but still I quarantined away from the family because we didn’t need more people coming down with the awful thing I had! The only upside was after the achiness left my hands (2 days I couldn’t stitch the aches were so bad!) I had some good stitching time. And as I was sorting things and looking at projects I just “accidentally” started a new huge sampler. I mean I had not planned to start it anytime soon but it was there and I thought I would start it just a little bit….

Eliza Mitchell from La D Da.

I like this sampler because of this cute knobby kneed deer with the graceful face and antlers, and all the flowers and the beautiful verse. It says, “If solid Happiness we prize within our breast this jewel lies And they are fools who roam The world has nothing to bestow From our own selves ours joys must flow And that dear hut our home.”

Aside from the million-of-acorns border, this sampler while large, should not be too bad to tackle. But after starting it I did wonder if I had been less impulsive, do I have an even prettier one in the queue? It set me on a tangent of thinking about my favorite and prettiest samplers and priorities along my stitching journey… I’ll share with you when I can get those thoughts together!

Now I didn’t totally neglect my responsibilities! I worked on Joyful World too and it is SO CLOSE! But I was getting quite bored of the leaves and needed to do something completely different as a break!

There’s just a bit of the left hand border to add leaves to as well as a few odds and ends bits in various places where I ran out of thread or forgot a leaf or something. I finished the April ground and have left to do the May ground. SO CLOSE, friends!! I think I’ve decided to leave out the white on the border that is supposed to fill in the red diamonds and outline the blue diamonds. I’m not sure that will add so much at this point to justify possibly not finishing this month.

Does it look unfinished to not add the white filling in those red diamonds or white outlines on the blue flowers? If I do anything…um…I thought about adding a yellow center in the blue flowers and a yellow eyelets in the red diamonds. But I also REALLY value calling it done! What to do???