another sampler

I never seem to have enough hours in the day to get everything done. I procrastinate too much I know. Today started off well but petered out after dinner when the dishwasher flooded half the kitchen, and the book binding didn't seem to go so well after that, gluey finger prints all over... I have all these ideas in my head but I seem to take so long to start. And the list keeps growing...

Anyway, this sampler, a gift for a friend, took me nearly 2 years to make (with lots of procrastination breaks of course) but I got there in the end...

If a child lives with criticism,
he learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility,
he learns to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule,
he learns to be shy.
If a child lives with shame,
he learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with tolerance,
he learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement,
he learns confidence.
If a child lives with praise,
he learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness,
he learns justice.
If a child lives with security,
he learns to have faith.
If a child lives with approval,
he learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship,
he learns to find love in the world

Dorothy Law Nolte

It's harder than it looks designing a sampler; the last two I've done I've spent ages on the computer colouring in pixels on photoshop, moving about the design elements in their separate layers until the whole thing looks right, and then started to sew, having to check back at the computer and count pixels on the screen to follow the pattern.


This time I thought I'd take a more organic approach and just started sewing in the middle of the cloth... I really admire old samplers, done by women and girls to practice their embroidery, learn stitches and sayings and record their family history. I love to visit Bankfield Museum near my parents house and look at the samplers they have on display. I found an old one in an antique shop but it was too much money (I'll just have to make my own...) I think sometimes the design of then looks quite random. Sometimes they don't look like they've followed a pattern but rather just copied elements from other samplers or made shapes up to fit the space they had. So that's what I tried to do...


It was quite liberating when I managed to stop worrying about what should go where. Just picking a motif I liked and making a start. Looking back I wish I had planned it slightly more as it was very hard to find a frame that fit the proportions, and I think maybe I should've centered the text to make it more symmetrical, but all in all I'm happy with how it turned out. And Abbie liked it which is the main thing after all!

saturday

Rainy day. But I'm wrapped up cozy and warm inside, with a slab of chocolate wedding cake left over from my cousin's wedding yesterday and a nice big cup of tea :)

This is the present I made for them (and I did iron it and frame it before I passed it on, just didn't get chance to take a better picture...) It's the third sampler I've made up, a mixture of motifs from books and made up bits, and its a process that I really enjoy. In the past I've used graph paper to work out the design but this time I used the pencil tool in photoshop to colour in pixels... it seemed to work ok (although I'm sure there's a simpler way that I haven't thought of) It was helpful that each motif could have a separate layer and could be moved about freely.

The wedding was lovely (despite the rain!) It feels good to see the family I grew up with changing and growing and taking on new roles in life, and it felt good to celebrate that all together yesterday... and the cake was good too :)

more projects

I seem to be starting lots of new projects recently, not sure whether that's a good thing or not, it either means I'll make lots of stuff or that nothing will get finished... but I'm sure it will be fun (or at least occupying) finding out!


I love old samplers and when I was younger I always used to pester my mum to take me to Bankfield Museum to look at the three large samplers they have there. I loved one of them particularly because it was sewn by a young girl, 11 years old I think, and it was beautifully intricate, I think I aspired to do the same... I also loved the verses they embroidered on the sampler, often about life and death; one of the samplers was a list of everyone who had died in the unnamed lady's family. I found that intriguing. I'm really interested in the social history of these pieces, the lives of the women who made them, the beautiful craftsmanship. I'd love to go to the V&A Museum to look at their collection of samplers. One day.


I've made a few samplers of my own, mostly from a pattern and once my own design. That was much more difficult than I anticipated, I lost count of the times I had to unpick and restitch, despite the fact I planned it all on paper first! So this time I'm half following a pattern (it's similar to this) and half improvising with my own designs.

I also decided to pick my own colours, partly because I know how I want it to look, partly because my Grandma gave me all this thread and I feel silly buying more!


And all the sewing things live in this bag, made by my mum before I was born. I like that.