Emma, Hannah, and I

Happy Fall!  We are still waiting for those cooler temps, but they can't be far away now.  To be honest, I've hardly paid any attention to the weather.  My needle has kept me busy.  I've spent more time with Hannah, below and Emma Mills, above.  The antique Emma is a sweet little sampler in my collection, and the chart will be released next week.  The original sampler was stitched on fabric that looks like dirty linen.  I tried to reproduce it with similar linen, but I was never happy with the result.  I then tried Meadow Rue, and that didn't work either.  I finally settled on vintage Lentil, and I used a variety of cotton overdyes.  It needed a bit of brightening up.  One has to wonder what prompted little Emma to stitch her admonishment about the evils of money. 

Hannah's red house is going up brick by brick.  I love stitching bricks for some odd reason.  I couldn't wait to get to the deer, and it was a fun motif to do.  I forgot to mention that I'm using 45ct. Buttercream and NPI for her.  Her release will probably be late in October.  In addition to Emma, I will be releasing a new design called "Jingle all the way" very soon.  The talented Vonna has worked her finishing magic once again.  It's a Death By Candy Corn meets Christmas idea , and it's somewhat primitive.   

We recently bought this small motorhome to travel with the dogs in. I'm hoping that we will escape the heat more often next summer.  We took it up to the pines of northern AZ this weekend.  If you look closely, it appears that I am fenced in.  Um, that would be for the pups who were too busy lounging on the beds inside.  The van has all the comforts of home, but I think it needs a sampler or two hanging in there somewhere.  Just saying...

The Red House Addiction

I've started the model for my next reproduction sampler.  I purchased Hannah Tinguey 1823 before we went on vacation last month.  I'm really drawn to red lettering on samplers, and the red house pretty much sealed the deal.  The stitching on the original is very, very tiny and just exquisite.  I was amazed to see that the thread colors are still very vivid.  The verse is also charming, and I love the way she spelled denied as deniyed. 

Aren't those big eyed stags wonderful?

It seems that most of the antique samplers that I come across come from England.  I thought about that as I was waiting for her to make the trip across the ocean.  I can only surmise that our young American girls were much too busy with day to day chores and basic survival in the early 18th and 19th centuries. 

I grabbed my camera when I saw these three sitting together.  It doesn't happen that often as Scarlett doesn't like to be next to Henry.  She tolerates him, but barely.  I'm sure if she could talk she'd say something like "girls rule, boys...yea, not so much".