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Sunday, August 28, 2016

Another band of Loara Standish



Indulged myself just once more to work on and complete another Blackwork / double running band on Loara Standish. Loara Standish' sampler is the oldest sampler to date found in the United States and the original one can be seen in the town hall in Plymouth, Massachussetts. I do love to do Double running stitch - it lends itself so well to stitch reversibly and I enjoy seeing
the patterns develop either exactly or sometimes see a different pattern evolve on the back side of the embroidery. I changed the colors and chose darker threads in the tan brown colors so that the pattern would be a bit more visible from far away. I debated if I should change the green color also and work the entire band in the darker color but then decided to work it exactly as recommended by Joanne. It was interesting also to note how Loara stitched this sampler in the truest sense - the narrower bands on top and on the bottom of the wider band are different patterns and it was interesting to note the dimensionality achieved in the center of the small flowers by simply using long armed cross stitch.

Closeup of texture and dimension

Saturday, August 20, 2016

Loara Standish and Frances Cheyney


I decided to continue on with Loara Standish by the Examplarery and continue working on Frances Cheyney this weekend.
The subtelty of design and color in this band of Loara are a welcome change from the very repetitive stitches I have to do on Frances.  Blackwork/Holbein stitches are always enjoyable and stitching things reversibly is always intriguing.




Close up on the last section of Frances - adding my own interpretation after lots of 'thinking':



Monday, August 8, 2016

Interesting YouTube segment on Samplers

Just found an excellent YouTube segment that you might find interesting too... It explains the history of samplers and shows the oldest known English sampler ....
AND it does not make me feel guilty about not having all my finished pieces all framed up anymore ! 
Enjoy!
http://youtu.be/BHlhRyoTQmU
Joy Jarrett of Witney Antiques shows some beautiful samplers

Saturday, August 6, 2016

Continuing on with Frances Cheyney

Just an update .... All the thinking and diversional stitching was worth it - figured out how I want to stitch all the details of the last, very dimensional band of Frances Cheyney.  Hope to get this finished this coming week and will write a detailed blog post then.

This is just such an enjoyable sampler - full of excellent challenges!