Strawberries are done

Here is an update on Betsy. I finished working the strawberries (I think they are strawberries lol) along the bottom and the black background. I think she is such a stunning sampler.

I have decided for a change of pace to go back up the top and finish that section. When I have finished doing this I might start doing some more of the black background. Hopefully Betsy has only a few more weeks work in her. I also have to put her name down on the bottom. But she is looking good

Every time, I go to my friend Karen's needlework store I keep falling in love with Larry the Lamb. So of course I had to buy him and make him didn't I. Larry is made from wool felt and is filled with crushed walnuts. I have him in a tray that I use which contains my threads, scissors etc. He is very handy when I am using a few different needles at one time.

Before taking the photos for this blog, I picked my self a little bunch of Parma white violets. Aren't they beautiful. Violets are one of my favourite flowers. I love the perfume they have, although many years ago when I first started working I bought myself a bottle of Yardley April Violets. I found that stuff quite strong and every time I wore it which wasn't often, the smell would give me headaches. Funny I only ever bought one bottle of it lol.

Well, I have finally finished doing the boxes that I was doing. These ones took forever to do as they all had to been cut out. They actually look a lot better than they do in photos.

Now I will be able to get to my dreaded housework lol. It is always a case of a women's work is never done.

I hope you all have a lovely week. Guess what I will be doing this week. Housework.

A Beautiful Book

Well as you can see Betsy D is moving right along. I haven't quite finished needleweaving behind the people on the right. The ones on the left hand side look ok though. When I have finished this bit, I have another lot of Queen Stitch to do. I suppose they will look like either buds or acorns. Who can tell lol. Then behind all this it will be black. I am still loving working on this sampler. As you know it is a sampler that I have wanted for many years.

It is really interesting with Betsy Davis as I have found another 2 samplers while researching the Mary Balch school. One of them is called Ruth Edd and the other is called Betsy Wardwell. If I get these links right check out how much Betsy Wardwell went for when she was auctioned a few years ago. All I can say is wow. It would be lovely if ours were worth that much. wouldn't it.

The other day I found this beautiful book and of course being a Jane Austen fan I had to buy it. What a beautiful book it is. It is called "Jane Austen's Sewing Box" - Craft Projects & Stories From Jane Austen's Novels by Jennifer Forest.

A lot of the craft projects are Regency Projects. But it is simply a beautiful book with small pieces from her books and small portions from her letters.

There are lots of photos like this one, which shows fashion in the Regency period.

There are also a few photos of miniatures that I love. This one also shows how to tie a cravat. Very useful lol. You never know when you have to tie one. Do you think he looks like Mr Darcy.

Among the projects that you can make there is this workbag. Very pretty.

Then there is this gentleman. Obviously an officer. I wonder who he could be lol.

I think it is actually an Australian book as it is published by Murdoch Books. But I know that Amazon in the UK have it as does Amazon in the US. I found it quite interesting with
Amazon US as they have this book listed new at $39.21, but they have I used book from $98.88. Interesting.

I must tell you, that I have found an absolutely brilliant cleaning cloth that really works. Most women will have them in their house and they work like magic. It is "panty hose". You use your old pairs of them. You can also use "knee high" stockings". It is a really good cloth that is very gentle at removing things e.g. soap scum, on stainless steel and also works brilliantly with bi-carb and vinegar.

We have a combustion fire and every few days I clean the glass of it to remove the soot that has built up. It works fine on the hot glass and removes all the soot so that we can see the wood happily burning away. When I have finished I just give it a wash and it is ready for the next time. They are also brilliant at cleaning around taps. You put the panty hose around the back of the tap and grab hold of each end and run it backwards and forwards.

Also I am sorry if I haven't paid you a visit lately. I have been very busy with my box project and hopefully I will finish it next week. The ones that I am doing at the moment have taken me a long time to do as they are decoupaged and I have had to cut all the motifs out. All I can say is that the end is near, thank goodness. I will be glad to see the end of them.

What amazing weather we are getting at the moment. I think Spring has come early, although my fire is still burning happily to keep the house warm. On Sunday, I went to visit my Dad in Sydney and it was definitely a "light and frilly" day.

I hope you all have a lovely week and thank you for stopping by. I really enjoy meeting all of you.

A Little Bit More

I hope that you can see the lady and the man on Betsy D. They are looking a little bit pale at the moment, but when I finish this strip, they will all be surrounded by blue. The best way that I can describe how this blue part will be done is a running stitch over alternating threads. A bit like needleweaving.

The background around the Queenstitch flowers is done in black in an alternating half cross stitch.

I am so happy that I decided to do Betsy D and her Sister Betsy Manchester. They are such beautiful samplers. I am slowly collecting Rhode Island samplers and it is interesting the differences between them. The Mary Balch samplers have more work on them, which I think makes them look quite stunning.

I wanted to show you this beautiful parcel that I received the other day from my very special friend who doesn't have a blog. I met this lovely lady a while ago and we just "clicked". We have similar tastes and we know what each other likes. She has been helping me with my collection of Sampler and Antique Needlework Magazines and she sent me some the other day. She also included a few beautiful things that I didn't have, which really made my day. I love everything that she sent me and I am looking forward to doing a special sampler that I have in my collection with the beautiful collection of silks that she sent me.

I am sorry if this post is short, but I haven't been feeling to good for the last few days. I have a slight migraine that won't go away.

An Adventure

Working on Betsy is like going on an exciting adventure trip. You know where you are going and what you will see a long the way, but when you actually get there and see all the beautiful sites, you go wow. That is how I feel about Betsy.

I am really enjoying this journey. The more I do the more I fall in love with her. She is so beautiful and not at all complicated

She now has a house and half a fence with one tree. I have another 2 trees with birds to go.

I am sorry if she looks a bit washed out in the photos. It was slightly overcast when I took the photos. But you have also remember that a lot of it will end up being stitched in black. Especially around the Queen stitch border. I think when that happens will really come alive.


I have also been enjoying researching Mary Balch and her school and some of her samplers. I find it so interesting learning about people who worked these amazing samplers. What an amazing collection they are. Wouldn't it be wonderful if they were all in a special collection for a short period of time in one of the Museums. Sort of how they bring together a famous artist and his collection of paintings, e.g. Monet.

Thank you to Pat to alerting me to a beautiful sampler that Betsy did when she was around 8. It is quite interesting to see how she has progressed. The Sampler is one of Joanne Harveys kits. I will have to go a searching to find the graphs lol.

What an interesting week last week was. They found the Back Packer safe and well. He can't go home to England for 6-8 weeks as he has fluid in his lungs and can't fly. His story is quite amazing as he survived some really cold weather. A lot of the experts are quite amazed that he survived his experience.

His father at the time when he was found was sitting at the Airport awaiting for his flight to be called to fly home. He got the call from the Police to say that his son was found and alive and well. They put Dad into a helicopter and flew him back to the mountains.

We also had a Tsunami alert last week, although I am totally safe where I live. There was an earthquake off the South Island of New Zealand with the 2 plates pushing against each other. I heard this morning that New Zealand is apparently 30 cm's closer to Australia. I just told my 14 year old. He was so excited that his comment was "Big whoop" and walked off lol.

Anyway, everybody was safe and sound. All we ended up having was a King Tide.

Anyway, I hope you all have a lovely weekend. I never know what I will end up doing lol.

English Backpacker Found Alive

I just wanted to let you know that they have found Jamie Neale, the 19 yo English Backpacker who has been missing for 12 days. He is suffering from dehydration and exposure. Apparently he has walked out by himself after being found by a couple of bush walkers. He was 15km away from Katoomba in the bush.

This is really good news. Where he was was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

A Little Bit More

I was going to update my blog last Thursday, but the cameras batteries were flat. We have 2 cameras that I could have used and you guessed it. Both were flat. So after a lot of recharging here are the latest photos of Betsy D.

She is coming along quite nicely. Although I think the people have really scary faces lol.

My next part to do is the house which is over one. As you know I don't mind doing the odd over one's lol.

Thank you to Barbara from Queenstown Samplers and to the 2 Pats who helped me find the link to seeing the original Betsy Davis Sampler in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, each of you helped me in one way or the other and I really appreciate your help. My DH was able to print a copy of the photo from one of the Pats. He doesn't have full internet service, so Pat who sent me a photo on her email helped him print the picture for me. I find it quite useful and I continually look at it while I stitch. I was going to post a photo of the original Betsy, but this computer is being a jerk (as usual). I am trying this on another computer. I hope the link comes through. It is really fascinating to see the original. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston link is here

It really helps when you are doing a antique reproduction if you can see occasionally the original. It sometimes helps answer the many questions one has while stitching these wonderful works of art

Don't you love these scissors. They are a pair of Scissoroos. I love the kangaroo on them. There are a lot of kangaroos around where I live, but you never see them. Sometimes when we go to Lithgow which is on the otherside of the mountains and it is early in the morning we often see a lot of them grazing in the grass. We are supposed to have a black panther who roams free around the mountains and has been spotted by a lot of people, but that is another story. Some people think it is fact or others fiction. He or she is supposed to have escaped from a circus a long time ago and has mated with a feral cat. So I am not sure how many there are. I have seem photos that are very grainy of it and hazy videos, but who knows.

Before I go, please say a little pray for a young English (19 yo) backpacker who has been missing for 10 days in the bush. He arrived here on the Thursday and stayed in the Youth Hostel. He decided to go for a bush walk 10 days ago and left his passport, papers, mobile phone in the Youth Hostel. He didn't come back and after a couple of days the Police, National Parks, Rural Fire Service Volunteers have been searching for him. Last week the weather was terrible as for a few days it was so misty and wet. The nights have been freezing and wet and there is another really cold snap coming again. His Father and Uncle have come out from England to help look for him, but the problem is that the Police don''t know where he was headed. It is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Anyway, I hope and pray that he is still with us. I feel so sorry for his poor parents and all those people who are out looking for him. Please pray that is is still ok.

We Now Have People

Well, as you can see, we now have a couple of people in Betsy. They are all over 1 along with the funny looking dog (I think it is a dog), tree. The deer is in free hand embroidery. As you can also see I fixed the mistake in the saying. I was lucky that I only had to undo one letter and that it was on the end of the line. I am actually looking forward to doing the black part around the Queen stitch border.

I think I will also have to do the other pole on the other side of the sampler so that the path that everybody is standing on can be finished. Not sure about the ladies faces though. They look a bit weird. From what I can gather from the chart and the photo on the front of the chart, their faces are filled in with free hand embroidery. The eyes are French knots and the mouths are just red slashes.

I would like to thank Karen for alerting me to the fact that there is a photo of the original Betsy Davis in a book called - Samplers A to Z, Museum of Fine Art Boston by Pamela Parnal. I have been trying to find a bigger photo of this sampler on the Internet and unfortunately the only ones that I can find are so tiny that you can't see them properly.

I was wondering if any body out there has a copy of this book and would be able to scan this photo and send it to me via email I would be really grateful. If you can see the original or even larger photo's of samplers, it just helps placing things properly. My email address is - sandra.moffitt@gmail.com.

My youngest son has been home all week with a Lower Respiratory Tract Infection and is on antibiotics. Talk about cough. I ended up buying another Vapouriser to help him breath without the coughing.

My middle son had a week off work so he came home for a few days to see us. I think he likes living in Sydney as he kept saying that it is so cold up here and that he now prefers Sydney. Well, I suppose it is warmer down there, he lives not far from one of the surf beaches and he is not far away from the things he likes doing. One good thing for him was that he was able to catch up with a lot of his friends.

I would just like to wish my friends in the U.S. a Happy Independence Day and weekend. I hope you all have a lovely long weekend and that you get a lot of stitching done. I also hope that the weather is fine for you.

We have been getting a lot of strong winds over the last few days. Earlier in the week the weather was quite mild, but on Wednesday evening the winds hit. I thought we were going to loose the roof on Wednesday night. I could picture me lying in bed shivering gazing at the stars. That is one good thing about living in the Mountains in the stars. They are spectacular. We get to see a lot more than you can see in Sydney with the city lights.