Nancy's Giveaway

Nancy of Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe is hosting a giveaway to celebrate her birthday. 
Visit her blog to enter. 
The drawing will take place 14 August 2014.  
She is one of the most generous people around. 
Her products are extremely nice.  You would love to have something from her shop. 

A Little More Progress

Here is the birth sampler; for obvious reasons, I am trying to preserve a little anonymity for the recipient and her family.  The colors are the same as I used for the birth samplers for both of her older sisters.  Besides the name and birth date, I added the row of pulled thread work under the date to better balance the personalization with the rest of the design.  With a little bit of luck, I will be able to resume my stitching during the coming weekend; however, I will not be stitching on Sunday as we have an out of town obligation in the afternoon. 

The Wedding Sampler Advances Slowly

As I predicted, the post this week is very slim.  Probably next week too. 
The charts I am supposed to stitch for Annie's Publishing arrived this past Monday and I need to try to get them back in the post a week from yesterday.  Remains to be seen whether or not I can do it. 

But, the most exciting news is that I got the bride's initials last Friday and stitched them into the sampler before the model arrived.  Yes, the wedding sampler is stitched.  The frame and mats should be ready for me some time this coming week.  Remains to be seen when I can mount the sampler and pop everything into the frame. 

In a Holding Pattern, Sort Of

Except for the initials of the bride and groom, the sampler is finished and just waiting. 
I have added a lineage in the margin which will not show when it is framed to show my relationship to the groom. 
Yesterday I selected and ordered the mats and frame.  It was difficult to select the mats because there are not many peaches and apricots in the mats. 

Progress on my long overdue First Stitches is slow and only going to become slower. 
The row of square eyelets takes up some extra space that appeared after I made some modifications in the sampler bands.  I will most likely add something between the groups but will wait to make a decision until I have seen the finished sampler. 
From this row of pansies on, there will be no significant changes. 

Unfortunately, I will be setting this long suffering UFO aside for a few weeks.  My editor at Just Cross Stitch is sending me a little project with a very short turnaround time.  You know that I cannot share it with you until it has been published.  My blog entries will be a little thin after the packet arrives. 

Before I found out about the new project from JCS, I selected a new project to work until I got the initials for the wedding sampler. 
I had already taken a picture of it to share with you. 

I will start with Blue Carnations from Victoria Sampler.  It is going to become a birth sampler.  The colors that I will use are the same ones I used to make a birth sampler for each of her older sisters. 

Stitching Progress Report

The wedding sampler is coming along very well. 
The bottom has a line of eight carnations. 
Currently, I am waiting for the bride's initials.  I hope that she agrees to use three as I think that will look better than two. 

First Stitches is also looking good. 
My revised wording fits perfectly; I may add a few beads at the beginning and ending of the line. 
Currently I am working out the band of stitching to absorb the space left from the original wording and rearrangement of one of the other bands. 
This is proving to be a little more complex than I had originally thought.  Right now my plan is to stitch a band of pulled threadwork.  I need to stitch a little sample to help me better work out the right and left side placements.  Hopefully that will work well and then I can stitch it in. 

It is finished as in completely finished

My sad little wedding sampler is no longer sad. 
It is in its frame and ready to go to its intended recipients. 

Also, I have completed and returned the model I was stitching for Just Cross Stitch.  The thread arrived and I finished the stitching that evening.  I popped it in the post and it was promptly delivered yesterday. 

There is not a lot of progress on the new wedding sampler but in my mind, every little bit is an advancement toward completion.  Now I will be able to concentrate on it and my current UFO. 

Stitching and Waiting

 No work on the UFO for this week. 
Last week I misspoke.  There were actually four different fibers stitched in the wedding sampler. 
Now this week I have finished the verse and added Algerian eyelets in the partial border.  . 
I think I need to pick out some of the previous stitching because I allowed one of the fibers to become too worn and it looks a little unattractive. 

For most of the past week, I have been stitching but I cannot disclose what it is until after Just Cross Stitch publishes it.  For the moment, I have gone as far as I can with it until some more of one of the threads arrives.  That means a little time to work on the wedding sampler.