A Work in Progress

Jane Longstreth! Jane* has been a work-in-progress since 2005 or so and I finally put the last stitches in her during the June 17 Friday Night Sew-in. We've had our ups and downs along the way, including frogging of some of the over-one verse and restitching the basket twice (miscounting) as well as the lower left border (again because I cannot count). Those over-one flowers on 36-count are tiny ! But the stem-stitched leaves caused the most anxiety and kept me from working on this piece for quite some time. Those leaves got ripped out a time or two, but I think they are passable. One of the other things that was hard for me about this sampler is that the motifs are not always symmetrical. I had to let some of my sense of order go! I'm so glad I persevered. *A little history about the sampler: Jane Longstreth is one of a group of well-known pieces from Chester County, Pennsylvania. Jane was the youngest of seven children and she stitched this sampler when she was 14. The origi...

You may recall this post in which I decided my personal challenge this year would be to work on WIP for 15 days in January. I am happy to say that I successfully completed the challenge and can show you my work on Jane Longstreth.* This sampler is in the Vassar Collection, but was done by a girl who lived in Chester County, Pennsylvania. I was drawn to this sampler because of the colors in the flowers in the border, but also because I live very close to Chester County. Jane has been a WIP for (ahem) some time. The chart called for 28 count linen, but I decided to do it on 36 count. Not usually a problem, except that I didn't account for the over-one parts of the chart. The lettering is not so bad, but the stitched in those flowers are tiny ! The stems will eventuallyhave leaves on them, but the directions say to trace the leaves on the chart and fill them in with stem stitch. I'll have to re-size the leaves to fit the higher count fabric and that is what has left Jane langui...

Tonight is the senior prom and we hosted the pre-prom picture session for seven couples (and their entourages of parents, granparents and siblings). It was a successful event. All the girls looked lovely and the boys were handsome. The picture taking went well even though the soaking rain we got all day in southeastern PA meant we had to have it indoors instead of on our deck. And then the limo arrived--a stretch Hummer. Now, normally I don't approve of such extravagance, but the prom location is 45 minutes away from our house and I'm glad none of the kids are driving in this rain. My husband was so busy helping the girls stay dry under golf umbrellas on the way to the limo while I was checking to be sure that everyone had their evening bags and flowers (I know--I'm such a Mom) that we didn't get a picture of it. There were plenty of other parents documenting every moment, though! I was happy that I took the entire day off to make this event happen. I was in the gro...