Tuesday, April 21, 2009

And Now for the Sky

I have finished working on the ground and now I am painting the sky. It is such a beautiful colour. It is 2 colours dmc 504 and 3813 blended together and is stunning.

My purchases from ebay arrived the other day and this is the first time I have had to post them on my blog. They are all charts from the 1980's. This is my favourite. It is a sampler by Mary Beale and is called "Personal Sampler". It reminds me slightly of my favourite style of samplers which are the Mary Balch samplers. That will give you an idea of the charts that I order from The Scarlet Letter.

This is a Needle's Prayse chart called "The Garden of Eden Sampler". It has Adam and Eve in it and I bought it to add to my small collection of Adam and Eve charts.

This one is a sampler from Jean Farish and is called "The Roxanna Corson Sampler". It has one of my favourite morbid sayings -

When I am dead and in my grave
And all my bones are rotten
When this you see remember me
Or I shall be forgotten.

I told my son that I was going to do this one and put it above his bed. I got told not to bother lol.

When I first say this one I thought it was a book on Antique Samplers that were museums. Well derrr it turned out to be just a chart of a sampler called "Ann Horton Sampler - 1830". But I am happy with it, which is the main thing.

Well as you can see they are all lovely, but I will put them away as I have bigger fish to fry as they say.

After a lot of hair pulling on my part (luckily I have a head of thick hair) I was able to place my order with Scarlet Letter and hopefully they are in the mail. I ordered the Betsy Davis and Betsy Manchester samplers. There is only one shop that I know of in Australia (in Sydney) that sells Scarlet Letter charts. Maybe it is just as well that I don't live near it and that I have to order things on line. Hopefully, my charts will arrive next week. I am looking forward to them arriving as I fell in love with them the first time I saw them. I am going to do them when I finish Elizabeth. I thought I'd do them before the eyes finally pack it in. Thank goodness I have one of the Mageyes. I find I am using it more and more.

You can tell in my small part of the world that Winter is coming. It has been wet, misty and cold for a few days. I have to rug up now, but if you travel down the mountain you need cooler clothes. No wonder my family keep getting colds.

Well, I suppose I had better go and fix my washing up. My washing machines is always singing out that it is finished. I don't know, a woman's work is never done lol. I hope that you are all well and happy in your part of the world.

16 comments:

Anna Zont said...

The progress is great! This designe is realy beautiful.
And i like your new patterns.
It will be interesting!

Siobhán said...

I love your new charts--especially the A&E!! LOL at hanging the sampler above your son's bed. My girls don't mind my stitching in their rooms but I can't convince my son to let me redo his room. I keep telling him that I want to do it in a patriotic/sailing/fishing type theme and he ignores me. LOL

Your WIP looks WONDERFUL!

Margaret said...

Wow! Eliz. Cox is so beautiful! And I love your ebay purchases. Glad that supposed book turned out to be something you like anyway. :D

Erica said...

Lovely stitching!
We seem to have the same taste in samplers. I have somes of these in my stash.

Deb said...

Your Elizabeth Cox is just so stunning. I can't wait to see more of your progress and the sky looks like the most beautiful shade of blue. Love all your acquisitions. I have the Adam and Eve one and just pulled it out of the stash pile recently. Thought that it would be a quick stitch. Need those when you have large BAPs going on. And I'll have to look up your SL purchases. I'm a big fan of SL patterns. It's funny though to hear you talk about it getting cooler and fall - it's Spring here - although we're still getting little bits of snow here and there.

Michelle said...

You are really making great progress on this - beautiful! And what amazing stash you've got there too!!

Lelia said...

wonderful progress on your sampler!!! And, great finds - your new projects look awesome : )

The Scarlett House said...

Wow, you got some awesome stuff there. I have never seen any of them before, and I still think the old stuff is some of the best. What more can I say about Elizabeth? It is absolutely amazing.

Aussie Stitcher said...

Elizabeth is looking wonderful, I clicked on the picture for a bigger view, the amount of work you have put into it is amazing.

Erica said...

Thanks so much for your comment on my rug! It really made me laugh!
Yes I am afraid men are just bound to be annoying one way or another!

Jan said...

Such wonderful progress on your sampler to date! And I love your new acquisitions, they are all wonderful!

Cindy F. said...

Absolutely gorgeous progress!!
and I love your new stash!!

Teri said...

Amazing progress on the Elizabeth sampler; it's all oh-so-beautiful! Great ebay finds. These "old" charts never go out of style. Happy stitching!

Brigitte said...

I love how you write about your stitching "painting the sky". And you are right, it's a beautiful colour.
Your new charts are so so great. And you are not alone with your love of that morbid saying.

Crazee4books said...

Hi Sandra,

It's Friday evening here and I'm
ready to crash!! I look forward
to my time in front of the
computer every evening, even if
it turns out to be for only half
an hour, before heading off to bed.
I find it relaxing and a help to
unwind from the day's activities
and stresses.

You've really done a lot of work
on Eliz. Cox in such a short time.
This design seems to me to be more
of a tapestry piece then a cross
stitch sampler. There doesn't
appear to be a lot of cross
stitching at all in it.

Don't you wonder sometimes what
the girls who originally stitched
these designs over a hundred (or
two hundred) years ago would think
if they could see their samplers
being reproduced by people all
over the world.

Wow...you've been busy on Ebay,
haven't you??? Makes me feel a
bit better about my occasional
bouts of madness on that sometimes
addictive site. I think that my
favorite chart is the Roxanna
Corson, the one with the sweet
(!!!) verse.

The weather has been up and down
in the past few days, but that's
to be expected at this time of
year. I don't mind the rain. In
fact I love it when it rains and
I'm at home puttering at the
computer, in the library, or
stitching. But best of all is
lying in bed and listening to
the rain hit the roof of the
house. It's so relaxing.

Yesterday I did my daily walk
in the rain. I got home from
work earlier then normal and
decided to do my walk before
making dinner so that I'd have
more time in the evening to
goof off. I walked for over
half an hour and my spring
jacket had to go into the dryer
afterwords because it was so
wet. I had my DH's toque on my
head to keep my hair and head
dry and warm, and mittens on my
hands. I'd rather walk in the
cool rain though then in the heat
of the summer.

I'm pleased with my cross stitch
book purchases from the book sale
and was surprised to hear how much
the sampler book might be worth.
Whee Hoo!! Guess I did okay, huh?

After my first month at Weight
Watchers I've lost 7.4 pounds,
which is pretty cool. Still a
long way to go to reach my goal
but it's a good start.

I hope you are feeling better
now and over your flu. Is the
fuss over Swine flu as big a
deal in Australia as it is here?

Next weekend my friend and I will
be going to see Wolverine and
the new Star Trek movie and we're
excited to be seeing both. Hurray
for the summer movie season!!!

Cheers!!

Lapplisor said...

Dear Sandra
excuses me, that I do not visit so long time with your Blog. There were many events in this year, which let my time become scarce.
Since yesterday I arrived at Sweden. Here everything is a little slower.
I hope that I again more time for visit the blog have.
You ordered yourself wonderful Sampler.
I am pleased to be able to pursue a daily your work on it.

Now I will regard further Posts with you:-)
♥☼♥Barbara♥☼♥