Mary Eaton finished, Cardinal Sampler begun

Mary Eaton has been finished for several weeks now, but due to multiple problems with multiple cameras, I have not been able to post a photo.

I finally managed to take a few, but the color is not right.
As soon as I can get my hands on a decent camera, I will replace this photo with a better one.

For now, here is Mary:

Mary Eaton  1763 - The Scarlet Letter
Stitched on 30 count natural linen using au ver a soie.

For my next project, I chose something that has been in my stash for years, the Cardinal Sampler from Patricia Andrle. I love her designs. I have stitched several of them.

I took this photo last week. I have made a little more progress since, but I am waiting to solve my camera problems before I post an update.

Unfortunately, the photo is a little washed out. The colors are much richer in person. I was going to stitch this design using silks, but there are a lot of blended needle stitches so I decided against it. I did make a few changes by adding some metallic threads to the border and the large A. It is not too noticeable. It just gives it a little sparkle.
Although it is not a large piece, it is slow going because of all the outlining. Almost every stitch is outlined.

If anyone is interested in stitching this piece, it can be found in the BH&G Cross Stitch & Country Crafts magazine Nov/Dec. 1994.

Well, I intended to post my December TUSAL, but the photo seems to have gone missing.
I will try to hunt that down for next time.

Long overdue Mary Eaton update, Autumn in New York

This is a very long overdue update! Among other things, I have had a lot of trouble with my camera, but I did manage to get a few shots finally.

I worked on the tree which is stitched in a vertical stem stitch. The little bird at the top was a bit of a challenge!

Next I continued working on the hills.

Here is a close-up of the bull. He was a fun stitch!

I continued to work on the sampler until I ran out of three colors. There definitely wasn't enough silk in the kit, as I was not even close to finishing.

Here is where I left off.

While I was waiting for the silk to arrive, I decided to work on a new project.

This was a fun, quick stitch! I finished it in a couple of weeks.

Autumn in New York - Primrose Needleworks

I stitched it on 32-count Sandcastle, and used the suggested Sampler Threads and DMC.
I will have to find a nice little frame for it.

. . . Well, I have since received the silks in the mail, and I have already started stitching Mary again. I finished the tree on the right, and I am working on the second bird. I will post photos just as soon as I can.

Mary's Parrot

Mary's parrot is finished! It is nearly as big as the sheep!

This took way longer than it should have. I don't know why but I was just very slow with it.
It was stitched in a horizontal stem stitch. It definitely would have been much faster using a cross stitch, but I like the way it came out.

I have decided to stitch the big tree in the center next.
You can see that I have just made a small start on the outline.

I am getting worried that I will run out of silk. There should be enough because I am using everything that came in the kit, but I am almost out of white now, and I have the whole rest of the border to finish. Time will tell I guess.

Hope everyone is having a pleasant weekend!
Back soon!

Mary's little tree is finished

I worked on the tree on the left side of the sampler, and finally finished it.

It extends from the bottom all the way up to the strawberry border. I am glad I started at the bottom because there are exactly 2 threads separating the flower from the border!

Here is how the whole thing looks so far:

Next, I am on to stitch  a parrot that will be just to the right of the carnation. It is just as big as the sheep! Yikes! That is one big parrot!

On the home front, our new little chickies have just started laying. Four out of ten have started laying these little eggs.

Three out of the ten are laying green eggs!

In the beginning, the eggs are always very small. You can see how small they are compared to a regular sized egg. They will be big soon though!

Now, just a question to put out there -  Does anyone know why a perfectly good iron that has not been dropped, abused, or mis-handled in any way should start leaking? Aggh! For the past 20 odd years, I have been using Rowenta irons. They have always been very good. The last two however have not been so good! They have both leaked. Tricky business when you are ironing a sampler!
What kind of iron do you use? Are you happy with it?
I guess I need to buy another one.

Mary Eaton Update

It was when I posted last time that I discovered the mistake I made!
The inner saw-tooth border was supposed to be stitched in light blue, not white.

Fortunately, I hadn't gotten too far with it, but still frogging silk . .  ugh!

Here is my new photo of the area:

 

 

With that fixed, I was finally able to move on to the free-hand stitching. The area under the last red flower was to be filled in with a large fanciful tree/flowering bush. I stared at this for ages, but I couldn't figure out how to stitch it in place accurately. There isn't a lot of extra linen here to play with.

I opted to leave it, and move on to the sheep standing on the hill. This wasn't easy either.

The stitching here looks a bit helter-skelter, but I had to find my way to the bottom to get anything to work! I needed to "build" the hill that the sheep was standing on first.

The little sheep took me over 4 evenings to finish, but I was pleased the way he turned out.

The legs, head, tail and ears are done in satin stitch and then covered with black. The entire body was filled in with French knots. That is a lot of French knots! A single strand of silk does not make for a big knot!

After the sheep, I started on the tree to the left of the sheep. That is the tree that goes all the way to the top.

The tree trunk is filled in with a vertical stem stitch in two different shades of brown.

Since I took these photos, I have made a little more progress, but there has been as much frogging as stitching! That darn tree is causing a lot of grief!

I will be back soon with some more photos.

Mary Eaton and a very late TUSAL

I totally missed the new moon last week, but here is my August TUSAL:

Mary Eaton is coming along. I am following the suggestion on the pattern and leaving the right side and bottom border until the free style embroidery is finished.

Of course Furry had to supervise the photo shoot!
We are actually very worried about Furry. He is a Maine Coon cat and is quite large, but in the last year, he has been losing weight. We have had him to the vet and all his tests came back normal. Not sure how to account for the weight loss.

Here is a better look at Mary:

(Click to enlarge)

I am nearing the end of the cross-stitch part, and will soon be doing the free embroidery part. The counting in this transition is not easy and I have not yet figured out a strategy. I have to be careful and make sure the design doesn't "grow" because there isn't a lot of extra linen here.

I have loved seeing all of your work! It continues to be such an inspiration to me.
I love all your comments too!

A Mary Eaton Update

I have been working diligently on Mary, but the satin stitch leaves really take a long time. It can be very frustrating trying to get them uniform. Several of them, I have done as many as 3 times. Eventually I just give up and leave them as they are.

Here is a closeup of the stitches.

(click to enlarge)

This was a kit, so I used the materials included, but I really wish I had swapped out the gold color for something a tad darker. The letters in particular, don't show up very well.

It always takes me a while to get used to the "sparse" look that a single strand of silk has on 30 count linen.

The large flowers, vine, border and alphabet are done in cross stitch. The leaves are all in satin stitch, and the saw-toothed white border in done in counted satin stitch.

Here is the whole thing so far.

(You wouldn't know it was my stitching if it didn't have some part of Furry in it)!
As soon as I get ready to take the picture, he jumps up!

On the home front, the garden has grown tremendously!

We have already harvested some of our corn. It doesn't get that big, but it sure tastes good! We have lots of tomatoes, but for some reason they don't seem to want to ripen.

We do have hope though.
There is one peeking through.  Mmmm! Soon!

The American Sampler Quilt is finally quilted!!

I can finally count it as a finish! I finished it by turning under the top as per the instructions, but it really looked bland, like it needed something else.

My solution was to add a blue binding to it to  pull it together a bit more.

The color didn't show up the best here. It is a soft, hazy, denim blue.

I was determined to use what I had in my stash for the backing. I came up with a light blue gingham.

It is very lightweight, sort of a springtime quilt.

I am very glad it is finished because now I can go back to making x's!

I continued working on the Mary Eaton Sampler. Here is what I have so far:

The Mary Eaton Sampler - Au ver a soie on 30 count linen



I have had this in my stash for years. Although I love the pattern, I was a little hesitant to tackle it because of the freehand stitching, There is quite a lot of it in this pattern. Actually, there are two graphs that come with it, one with the freehand stitching, like the original, and one that is all cross stitch. Of course, I have to do the freehand!

The trick with doing freehand stitching is to try to keep it contained to the allotted area. It seems to grow quite easily. LOL!

OMG! Enough of this heat!

I know it is summer, but come on!  The heat index today is over 100 degrees! UGH!

I am withering right along with my tomatoes!

We do get those heat spells in the Hudson River valley from time to time, but lately they seem to last longer and longer! Not my idea of fun, but then I am a spring/autumn, (even winter) girl myself.

Anyway, I finished stitching The American Sampler quilt. Of course I can't call it a finish until it is quilted. Here is a photo I took last week, before the great oven was turned on!

I have been working on the quilting. I always forget just how long it takes to finish a quilt, even a little one like this! The colors came out just a little too pastel-ish for my tastes.

I enjoyed stitching this, but I will glad to finish this and move on to something else.

I have already chosen my next stitch. It is the Mary Eaton sampler from The Scarlet Letter.

I actually made a small start on it but not enough to merit a photo.

To all of you suffering through the heat, I wish you good air conditioning!