I Am Still Here

My goodness, I can't believe how long ago it was since I last posted photos of Sophia. Since that last post I haven't done that much on her really.

I finished the middle section and I have been working on the border that separates the bottom section from the middle section. This is all over one and it has been slow going. I am now filling in the rose buds, but I am currently sick of working over one at the moment, so I have decided to go down to the bottom section and work up from here. This where the sheep are along with a lot of green fill ins.

I have also since I last posted done a little bit more on Harriet Burry and she is looking lovely. I thought that I would leave the verse for a while and go and complete the right hand side of her. I have always liked this sampler and I find that I enjoy working on her.

It has been a long time since Hannah Lancaster made an appearance, so I thought that I had better post an update on her. At the moment I only work on her on occasions and she is looking lovely. For some reason I am all versed out at the moment so I thought that I would come back to that later. I was eager to find fresh fields with her.

I have also made this Stacy Nash Pocket which I quite like. I thought that it would be good to store odds and sods such as scissors and pinkeeps. I enjoyed stitching this as it was a change from working on a huge sampler. I changed it a little bit. It is supposed to have a string tie but I changed mine to 2 MOP buttons and I think that it looks ok.

I keep forgetting to post this chart, but while I was in hospital for my recent operation I was talking to Margaret of Days of a Sampler Lover about how I liked the sampler Jane Atkinson and the problems that I was having getting the chart as my Needlework Store in Sydney had run out of it. Margaret, very kindly ordered a copy for me when she was ordering a copy for herself and sent it to me as a get well present. Have you seen Margaret's Jane. I always knew that it would be a stunning sampler and I was right. Margaret's Jane is truly beautiful and I am looking forward to seeing it framed.

As I couldn't get Jane I ordered Sarah Bignell which has similarities to Jane and is another samper that I want to do. I love the floral borders on both of these samplers and when you really study them, you can spot the similarities plus the differences in the border. Both are all kitted up and ready to go. I just have to make up my mind which one to do when I finish my current samplers. I would just like to say a big thank you again to Margaret for allowing me to do this beautiful sampler. I don't think the Needlework Store has reordered it as yet.

I don't know if you can see these properly, but since my last post my Sister has come back with a bulging suitcase full of goodies for herself and my family. These are some of the wonderful things that she bought back for me.

While she was in England, she went to Windsor Castle again with her friend who has never been to England before. She spotted the sewing case and also the tape measure and knew that it would be the perfect gift for me. This sewing kit is very special as it is made out of a special piece of material, but more on that in the next picture. She also went to the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court and brought me back this stunning book on English Embroideries along the beautiful black pair of scissors in the red case. I love them all.

This is the other side of the sewing case and as I said the material is very special. I originally saw this beautiful material many many moons ago when I last paid a trip to England. I had always wanted to go to Broadlands which was the home of Lord Louie Mountbatten as we used to see him riding behind the Queen when we went to the Trooping of the Colour. One of the bedrooms in Broadlands is done with this material. The walls, along with the curtains are done in this particular bedroom.

The original design was created for the Royal Yacht "Victoria and Albert" in the 1850's and it is also in Queen Victoria's bedroom at Osborne House.

What makes this piece of chintz so unique and hopefully you will be able to see it is that amongst the twigs that form part of each bouquet you can see the profiles of both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Their profiles are in pink and Queen Victoria is on one side of the bunch of flowers and Prince Albert is on the other. If you concentrate on the middle bunch you will hopefully see them. I think that you can also buy these sewing kits from Buckingham Place as there is a label sewn on from there. Mine came from Windsor Castle.

And finally I have added a few more books to my sampler book collection. My eldest DS and DIL very kindly sent to England to buy the book on Samplers by Rebecca Scott for me for Mother's Day. I had to wait for it to come in the post. What a wonderful book this one is and I have enjoyed both reading and looking through it. I also obtained the Perpetual Engaging Diary by Needleprint which I thought was lovely. There are some lovely graphs in this collection which would help to make a wonderful sampler. The last book is one that I have been after for a long time.

Where I live there are a lot of 2nd hand book stores in a lot of the villages that make up the Mountains. I was going through the list of books at my favourite 2nd hand book shop, I discovered that they had the Samplers and Tapestry Embroideries by Marcus Huish. Believe me I hot footed it down to get it lol. Wonderful book.

Well, that is about it. I'll try to do a bit better in the future, but I haven't really been on the computer for ages. I hope that you have a wonderful week and that the weather is kind to you. I know that my friends in the Northern Hemisphere are going through extreme hot weather at the moment. My DH told me yesterday, that we only have 3 more weeks of Winter left. Where has the year gone. It seems to be flying by.