Elizabeth Thornbrough and other stuff...

Elizabeth Thornbrough 1790 has been released.  Actually, she was released two weeks ago but I forgot to make a blog post about her.  Elizabeth is an early sampler,  probably from Yorkshire, and of a nearly square size that won't take too awfully long to complete.  The stitch count is 241 x 239 and it is all cross stitch over two threads and algerian eye stitch.  No over one...yeah!!  The first photo is my reproduction, the second is of the antique.  When stitching the inner border, Elizabeth was pretty much all over the place with her eyelet stitches,  over 2,3,5, whatever,  threads, so a few liberties needed to be taken to make it stitchable.  I can't tell you how excited I was at finding the perfect size vintage frame in my collection for Elizabeth!  Available for $20 plus shipping in my etsy shop.  Merry Wind Farm

If you are interested, the antique will soon be for sale for $150.00.  After I have completed a reproduction, I usually sell the antique at a reduced price.    The few holes disappear completely when backed with a piece of Confederate Gray linen from Weeks Dye Works, which is the same linen which was used for the reproduction.  

In my previous post, I was asking for help with locating Grace Stewart.  No luck, unfortunately.  Of all the registered Grace Stewart births between 1790 and 1840, none have initials that match what looks to be her parents.  Scottish samplers are usually so easy to find the stitcher genealogy, but not Grace.  Something odd is going on, either an unregistered birth, or perhaps Grace or her father had another forename on their birth certificate.  So for now, even though she is charted and stitched, she is on the back burner until I decide what to do.  Should I just publish the chart without knowing who she was and where she was from?  Decision, decisions.  And since I didn't get her out a month before the Nashville Needlework Market, which I do not attend, I know from experience that shop owners will be too swamped for the next two months to place orders.  I learned that the hard way last year.

I think I am perhaps making a major change in my stitching habits.  For 35 years I have stitched large and involved reproduction samplers for my own enjoyment and decorating.  I have no space left, and the last several years worth of samplers, including big beauties like Miss Mary Ann Bournes and Ann Tong Uffindell, just sitting in drawers.  I think I will work on small stuff from now one, smaller samplers that I can stitch onto a bag or something, or ornaments or similar.  

I saw this beautiful red wall with red antique samplers on Facebook.  Now I want to stitch a bunch of small red samplers.  I have gathered together 3 or 4 charts, and am working on Elisabetta Monteleone  first.  I am stitching her in Gentle Arts Buckeye Scarlet and it is beautiful!  

This little six pound bundle of joy and happiness has developed an irritating habit!  All three dogs sleep upstairs in the bedroom with me.  Bertie (mini poodle) and Oliver (cocker) together on the floor on an extra large size dog bed, Bella has a covered cat igloo for a bed, which she sometimes sleeps in and sometimes on the bed with me.  She always starts out on the bed with me, I have to pick her up, after cuddles she has been jumping down, then about 10 minutes later I hear er, er, er, sneeze, sneeze, getting my attention.  She wants picked up again!  I wish she would just stay up or make up her mind.

Good thing she is so adorable...

Melinda

xxx