Sampler September

Last year it was really good to participate in “Sampler September” on Instagram because it gave me a lot of motivation to work on Bathya from Hands Across the Sea. I made some good progress getting that large sampler underway. However, then I put it away to get some other things done through the end of the year. Now it is time again to pull it out and see how much I can get done in a month!

I want to finished that white wave with flowers band, the pink and green alphabet bands that are started, and finally the pink and green flowers under that.

It is time consuming stitching that needs real concentration because I am stitching it reversibly. It is also not so portable. So I need a second project too. I originally was going to dedicate September to Dorcas Haynes, but I need to do more research into colors for her. Instead I will work on my version of Janet Reid by Chessie and Me.

In my version, I am eliminating all the alphabets at the top. I am centering the picture motifs. Then using the big alphabet font stitched in Algerian eyelets, I am writing “Garden of Delight.” It just struck me, looking at this sampler, that it WAS a delightful garden and I wanted to call it that.

It is charted in wool. I did have a false start with the wools and decided I would just use cotton. I am changing some of the colors to suit my tastes too. So this will no longer really be Janet’s sampler, but she was very inspiring! I hope you will like how it looks!

And…I’ve got one more, H. Faulkner from Priscilla’s Pocket. I’ve always though this was the most charming sampler. It’s small and I already had all but two of the silks. I think I’ll make it my “small” for the month as it only measures about 4”x6” ! To be honest, I gave it an early start just to see how I liked the linen, which I am *almost* sure is the correct one (Weeks Straw-I have such a nice big piece of it but it was not labeled-it seems a little dark but is closest to what I need so I guess it doesn’t matter too much).

So that’s my plan! If you want to follow my progress I will be posting every day of the month on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/marysthread/