Long Time, Little Stitching

  I find it hard to believe that it has been so long since I last posted given how little stitching I seem to have gotten done.  When I looked at my calendar, I was surprised that it has been almost 2 weeks since my last post and that we are already past the middle of September!  I would say time flies when you're having fun but I'm not too sure that has been the case.  In fact, I'm not sure exactly what I have been doing for the last 2 weeks!!
  I have been working slowly but surely on the verse on Ann Bowers.  It is such slow going that I can spend an entire baseball game and only manage to get in one line of verse!! I had bemoaned the idea that it would take me a whole week to get that first section completed  if I could only stitch a line a day but there have been some days I couldn't get to it at all so it still isn't finished.  But, even though it is tedious as all hell,  I think it's beautiful!

Ann Bowers by The Examplarery
45 ct. Italian Linen
DMC threads

One more line of verse here and then I can roll it to the next section!!  That makes me smile but under that large band you see at the bottom of this picture, 2 more lines of over one verse awaits!!!
   This past weekend we put on a workshop at my local sampler guild, Tidewater Sampler Guild.  We hosted a relatively new designer who is, like Betsy Morgan, out of the Loudon Samper Guild in northern Virginia. This is my second time in one of her workshops and we had a wonderful time!!!!
   I took both of the classes she taught as well as the Sunday project, which was our regular meeting, and each was more challenging than the next!!  The first was a lovely Quaker design stitched on a piece of joined linen.  The joining was, of course, the objective of the class and although the technique is pretty simple, the act is very tedious and challenging.  Needless to say, my linen is not yet joined but it is such a pretty sampler I hope to get it done soon!!

Red and Gold Sampler
by Pamela Darney of Guildhouse Samplers
32 ct. Weeks linen w/Gloriana threads

  The 2nd class was a PA German sampler.  We were given a black and white photo of her model and were to select our own colors and linen for our own project.  Seventeen colors, I think, and all to be used somewhere in the piece!!  Talk about a challenge!!!

 I have  started with someones color palette and made changes to suit myself before but having to come up with all the colors on my own was a little daunting to say the least!  But she had brought hanks of different colors that we had a big throw down with on our selected linen and it was such a blast!!!  Totally worth it just for that part, even if I never manage to finish the sampler.  Which I better since we are supposed to meet in a year so we can see what we all did!
   The Sunday project was like the class above but one step farther.  It was called Variation on a Quaker Diamond and it was all wide open!  Choose your linen, number of diamonds in your piece, motifs in the diamonds, colors of motifs,  my head is still spinning!!!  My plan is to do them in the order that I took them, learning each lesson and adding to it as I move to the next.  Hopefully, it will feel less overwhelming by the time I reach the last one.  Which assumes  brain doesn't explode before I get to the last project!!!
   I have also managed to get a start on the last birthday piece I need to stitch for this year but I can't show it yet since the recipient reads my blog.  I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise!!
   It is IH&SW this weekend and I have really been looking forward to that!  Gives me an excuse to stitch all weekend and not feel guilty about it!!  My calendar has become crazy lately and I could use some guilt free stitching time.  I am also feeling the tug of Fall stitching so I think I may have to give in to that urge this weekend.  I have some things kitted and ready to go that I never got around  to last year and it would be very easy to get those underway.  And since they are small, I could, in theory, have some finishes in short order. Fingers crossed!!

Hope you're enjoying your stitching as much as I am,  Laura