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Slight hiatus while I did a wedding sampler 🙂

Back on the big project: continuing the side borders as I go, and doing the first line of motifs, shown underneath a ‘leaves and flowers’ border (in suffragette colours!).

The spaniel is a design from Fido Stitch Studio, a Christmas present from one of my best writer friends. I did a larger project which was the spitting image of Archie; this spaniel has a slightly wider blaze, but is still much more like Archie than like Dexter (I do intend to stitch Dexter!).

The typewriter is a nod to my childhood; I’d always written stories in notebooks or on lined paper, but what I really wanted was a typewriter so I could be a PROPER writer. So I badgered my parents. (No, I didn’t want a doll’s house. I wanted a typewriter. And more books. Lots more books. There is no such thing as too many books.)

Eventually, on my sixth birthday, I got a Lilliput typewriter. It came in a hard case, and I can still remember the thrill of opening the case and seeing a proper typewriter. Metal, not plastic; and it was turquoise and white (so when I saw this Diane Machin pattern, it was clearly the right one for my sampler – though the turquoise I remember was more on the teal side). It didn’t have a proper carriage return lever – you had to push it from the side instead – but I’m fairly sure it had little metal buttons you could press and slide to set the margins, and gave a warning ‘ding’ when you were five characters away from the margin.

Oh, and the wedding sampler? It’s on parchment-coloured Aida; the design is from the Historical Sampler Company, and the bees were great fun to stitch. I’ve ordered a second (different) sampler kit from them, for an event later in the year.

More progress this week, to the point where I’m about a quarter of the way through. (I’m taking it off the stand later today and sneaking in another project.)

The border is quite time-consuming and fiddly (it needs concentration as it’s very easy to go astray on the backstitch), so I’m doing the side borders as I go; plus it means I won’t have to keep scrolling through the sampler.

This week’s additions: finished the alphabet, added the quote, and two butterflies.

The quote is one of my favourites because it’s so uplifting. It was written by Julian of Norwich – from chapter xxvii of Revelations of Divine Love, the earliest surviving published book written in English by a woman, and the only known book written by an anchoress. In 1373, aged thirty and a half, Julian fell seriously ill. The night she thought she was on her deathbed, she received sixteen ’shewings’ (visions); she recovered, wrote her book and spent the rest of her life as an anchoress (i.e. she withdrew from secular life to concentrate on religious observance). I’ve modernised the spelling (though I was very tempted to keep to the original!). Stitched in Anchor 162 (surf med), and the attribution is in DMC 413 (pewter grey dk).

The blue butterfly is a Madeleine Floyd design (clipped from a magazine – I loved the feeling of movement). I’ve always been fascinated by blue butterflies, ever since I was a tiny child and saw the Margaret Fountaine collection at Norwich Castle museum; there are lots of chalk hill blues at Warham Camp, which I used as a research location for my book ‘A Will, a Wish and a Wedding’.

The swallowtail is from littlebeachhut.com; although we didn’t actually get to see any swallowtails during our research trip to Wheatfen Broad (same book!), we saw plenty of peacock butterflies. And I finally got to see a swallowtail at the Horniman Butterfly House in London (along with a blue morpho).

Started the ‘my favourite things’ sampler on 7 April 2021. Pleased with how it’s looking so far.

The top and side borders are based on a Textile Heritage design, though I’ve changed the colours of the jewels. Originally I wanted a border in green, white and violet (suffragette colours!) but couldn’t find one I really liked. This one is more of a medieval knot type, corresponding with one of my favourite literary periods, and the dog design at the corners (taken from a Celtic internet page) reminds me of the little dogs you see at the feet of a knight on an alabaster tomb (ticking another of my interests).

Close-up:

Notional details:

Borders and dogs, using DMC threads:

* dark gold 832 (golden olive)
* light gold 834 (golden olive vy lt)
* red 326 (rose vy dk)
* green 700 (green bright)
* purple 333 (blue violet vy dk)
* blue 3839 (lavender blue med)
* black 310 (black)
* white BS5200 (snow white)

The alphabet is from a DMC pattern – I really liked the font, and I also liked the idea of having flowers round them (similar idea to the lettering in medieval illustrated manuscripts, and the shape of the flowers is closely connected to the ‘jewels’ in the border).

The letters are stitched using Anchor – 168 (surf blue lt) for the main body and 169 (surf blue med) for the outlining. The flowers are stitched in DMC: petals 600 (cranberry vy dk) and centres 726 (topaz lt).