Winter into spring - Scott, Tennyson, violets, roses, and shamrocks.

Although it's mostly spring here now, I know there are other parts of the country where snow's still falling - and I won't discount the possibility of spring snowstorms here, either.  We're actually hoping for moisture of some kind, as the ranchers and farmers could certainly use more, and even our town gardens and lawns need extra after a winter that's been drier than usual.  So I decided that posting my latest finish, a winter one, would still be OK.  This is a contemporary piece designed by Brenda Gervais (Country Stitches/With Thy Needle and Thread) - "Heap on the Wood".  The verse is taken from Sir Walter Scott's lengthy narrative poem Marmion.  I'll finish it either as a framed piece or as a  wall-hanging and hope to have it in place by December for Christmas. It's fairly large, and I'll probably hang it over the mantel of our fireplace. 

In a more spring-like vein, I don't think I've ever posted yet a photo of my completed  "Violet Sampler" from The Drawn Thread,  stitched with silks on one of the most beautiful pieces of coloured linen I've ever had in my hands.   Not the best of images, but it gives you some idea (I'll be taking it in for framing this month).  It has a several glass pale amethyst hearts, as well as a gold-toned dragonfly charm (we're hoping that it won't be too long before we see dragonflies outside again....)  

The verse, from Alfred Lord Tennyson's In Memoriam, reads:  "Now fades the last of winter's snow, And thick by ashen roots the violets grow." 

The "quick stitch of the month" is  My Pink Rose, from Blackbird Designs - a small piece (probably for a pin-cushion or pillow) that was fun to do on a polka-dot linen:  

I'm back to more of my reproduction/historic-influenced sampler stitching now, but I'll wait till next time to show progress on a schoolgirl sampler from rural Ontario as well as Janet Burnet, an elegant Scottish sampler from the early 19th century.  
In the meantime, enjoy a cup of tea - perhaps some Irish Breakfast in a shamrock teacup.  And as usual, I love to hear from readers, either in the comments section or by email.  Till later ..... 

Dianne in Canada

 

 

Once upon a time,

Gathering Honey

Once upon a time, long ago and far away, I started several stitching projects.  For one reason or another (running out of a crucial thread, life interfering, not knowing how to proceed with a stitch, etc., etc.), some of these were set aside.  And now the time's come to pick them up again and FINISH them.  Other projects are enticing, but none are currently urgent, so these three long-delayed pieces are now either in my stitching frame or ready to go.  The first is the longest-running, an old Better Homes and Garden piece called Gathering Honey (shown above).  I think there are over 4  dozen colours, and a few specialty stitches as well.  I can't remember when I started it, but I'd guess at perhaps six or seven years ago.  Here's my progress to date: 

Gathering Honey - progress to mid-February 2012

While I've stitched a lot, there's still lots more to come and it's not quick work.  So we'll see - I'm thinking that I'd like to have it finished by Easter, but in the past, setting myself deadlines has taken much of the pleasure from the stitching, so I'll keep that time in mind, but in the meantime just concentrate on enjoying each section as I do it.

The two stems in the lower right quadrant of the inner motif will later be topped by a yellow section of multiple French knots, something I haven't stitched for quite some time.  But seeing as I did a piece once that called for a couple of hundred of them, I think that the twenty or so from this pattern shouldn't be too daunting.   The threads for the design are DMC, stitched on about a 28-ct. linen. 





Two more are waiting in the wings after this one.   One's called The Cloister Garden, a design from Drawn Thread, stitched with Au Ver a Soie on 32 ct. linen in a soft mauve-y rose. 
     Here it is:

The Drawn Thread's design of The Cloister Garden , and my progress to date

 It was passed on to me from another stitcher several years ago, and after looking carefully at it and continuing with the small section she'd started, I realized that she'd started with the wrong shade of silk.  So I've re-stitched most of it, and hopefully won't take ages to finish it.  I have the instructions and suggestions from a group who stitched this together (each on her own project) - I'll see whether their ideas make my needles fly a little faster :) 



 
The final design of this floral triumvirate is another Drawn Thread design, The Violet Sampler.  Although I don't have an image at the moment of the original photograph on the pattern envelope, you can get an idea of it from my progress photo here - like the previous DT design,  it's also in silk on linen (sorry about the lack of ironing in this photo!) 

My progress on The Drawn Thread's Violet Sampler 

 The violet was the favorite flower of my mother-in-law - in her garden she cherished a few plants of this delicate spring flower from her native province of New Brunswick.   So once this is completed, I'd like to frame it carefully and hang it close to a photo of her as a young woman.

My stitching time won't  suffer from lack of possibilities :)