Presenting Mary Ellen Turner

I have finished Mary Ellen Turner!

I decided to leave the Mary Ellen Turner and date, and add my own initials and year of finish. Stitching Age 11 under her name didn’t seem as important to me as signing it myself.

I guess I’m leaving off a bit of backstory…I had thought about signing this with a family name instead of Mary Ellen Turner, possibly one of my grandmas. While Turner is nothing to me, Mary and Ellen are the names of one of my grandmas and one of my husband’s grandma’s. I thought I could have added Ruth and Betty and put all 4 of our grandmas on this. That was one idea. I also thought to just blast my own name on there. I did love stitching this sampler. But this whole time I have thought of the same as Mary Ellen’s so I did decide to keep her name and add as much of me that would fit underneath, 32 stitches worth.

I’m very happy how it came out. I will probably never find as pretty as frame as the model is in (we had the model at The Attic and it is in a beautiful antique floral carved frame) but I’ll keep an eye out.

Concentrating on Mary Ellen, there is not a lot of progress to show on Anna Millet.

I didn’t quite meet my revised Sampler September goal, but I think I will keep this project in rotation. It isn’t very hard stitching and I’d like to finish her up. I have another monochrome sampler I would love to do and ( that one in red) and I really should finish this one first.

Also, I do want to comment on the 100.3 and 46 count I’m using on Anna. I do love the colors. Ok. And the coverage is nice in this combination. In fact, the linen, which is Cedar River, is a real pleasure. I’m glad I have a big part leftover for another project (maybe that red sampler) But the 100.3 itself (Thistle Green from Gloriana Luminescence)…I don’t love it. It is so springy. You have to PULL it or the stitch tension is super loose. Maybe on a lower count it wouldn’t spring and bump up so much. But then the coverage wouldn’t be as good. I have 100.3s and Luminescence kitted for several other projects I’d like to stitch but for the joy of stitching, I don’t think they will ever beat the satisfying stitching feeling of regular hand-dyed silks, one of the main reasons I loved Mary Ellen so much. Do any of you have the same feelings about 100.3s on 46?

So with a substantial finish under my belt and good progress on Anna, what’s next?

For the October Blackbird Academy assignment, we are to stitch pumpkins. Well no surprise there. I had kitted this little pin cushion “Tiny Pumpkin” on the toweling from “When the Leaves Fall.”

I love the self finishing finish which I did in another BBD toweling project.

Isn’t that so cute? I’ll do the pumpkin one exactly the same. It was easy, hand stitching and very satisfying.

Responsible me says I need to work on one of 3 majors WIPS I selected for this year. They are…

Cheerful Bouquet by Jeanette Douglas which I abandoned pretty much as soon as I finished the bouquet and had to start on the border:

Checkerboard Stag Sampler by Samplers Remembered which continues to languish under the satin stitch flowers counting slog (interestingly, it’s also the satin stitch sawtooth border in the Cheerful Bouquet that made me put it down but I actually love satin stitch and sawtooth so I’m not sure what my block is on this):

The envelope flap of the Lady’s Needle Roll. Does anyone even remember I was stitching this? I felt so triumphant at the finish of the main stitching I kind of didn’t even continue with the final odds and ends of this project. Woe is me. But it has been on top of my WIP pile all year. Responsible me says get serious about it!

Chaos/whimsical me says start something new! Or work on something that is barely started that was picked up on a lark and never progressed! But what? There’s no telling what it could be. So stayed tuned, it is always an adventure.