Holly and Ivy Sampler: center section

Wednesday, September 19th, 2012

Time for a happy dance break:  the center section is finished!

I am so glad to be done with the Celtic knots … between the fractionals and keeping track of the backstitching, the knots took a long time to complete.  By comparison, the candles and greenery were a quick stitch.

Almost all the greenery is made up of blended threads.  More beads, and more sparkle!  Also, I chose to customize the initial and date blocks to more closely match the alphabet of the carol.

This section is pretty enough to be a finished project on its own; I’m excited to see what the rest of it will look like.

I’ll work on the holly and ivy garlands next; with more fractionals and fiddly backstitching ahead, I wonder how long it will take?  To keep the whitework neat and clean, I’m saving that section for last.

 

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Holly and Ivy Sampler continued

Thursday, August 16th, 2012

After beginning the Holly and Ivy Sampler, I took a break to work on the Hardanger project I had started before making the christening gown for my niece.  I was able to finish the centerpiece in time to enter it in the Evergreen State Fair!  We’ve been driving past the fairgrounds every weekend this summer to pick up and drop off my older son, who is working at one of the Boy Scout camps in the area, and very much wants to come home on his day off for a home-cooked meal, his own bed, and fresh laundry (isn’t it nice to be needed?).   This is my first entry for the Evergreen State Fair, and as with the Western Washington (Puyallup) Fair, exhibitors must wait until the fair opens to find out how they did … not much longer to wait now!

As a result, my progress on Holly and Ivy isn’t very exciting, but it is definitely useful:

All the borders are now stitched, and ready to fill in.  Now that those are done, look for more interesting progress pictures to come in the weeks ahead.  Thanks for visiting!

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Beginnings – Holly and Ivy Sampler

Saturday, June 9th, 2012

A very long time ago, I set a goal to stitch some large Christmas pieces …

The front frame was used for the Heirloom Wedding Sampler by Victoria Sampler, but there was something daunting about that larger frame behind it, so I kept putting it off.

After finishing my niece’s blessing gown, I finally started!  (Perhaps these Christmas samplers don’t seem quite so large by comparison any more.)

Presenting … Teresa Wentzler’s Holly and Ivy Sampler:

I started stitching the middle section to get all the over-one stitching over and done with while I was still excited about the project.

The metallic threads and beads make this a very sparkly, festive piece.

I’m hoping to have this one finished and framed in time to display for Christmas.  It may just happen this year!

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