There now, that wasn’t so hard

August 10, 2023 ~ Liz A ~ 31 Comments

After looking at it and pondering it for years, I just did it … unstitched what needed to be unstitched, worked within the space I had, ordered a frame, and voila …

There was no room to sign it, so I didn’t. And I was so wrapped up in framing it that I neglected to photograph the back. Oh well.

It’s done and I’m very happy with it.

Happy World Embroidery Day

July 30, 2023 ~ Liz A ~ 26 Comments

In a wonderful bit of synchronicity, I recently pulled out this family sampler …

started in 2014 when we only had three grandkids …

I brought it with me on our recent family vacation at Folly Beach, but somehow I was too busy to do anything with it …

Anyway, I worked on the sampler this past week, trying to figure out how to fit three more grandkids into a much-too-small space …

And it’s almost done … except for the signing and framing (watch this space). However, when I learned today was World Embroidery Day, I just couldn’t wait to show you.

Of course, the painter in the family has already conceived and completed his most recent beach memento …

But hey, I love stretching a project out over nine years 😉

Sampling a life in stitches, 2018

April 9, 2018February 9, 2019 ~ Liz A ~ 9 Comments

I recently joined the Fiber Artists of San Antonio (FASA) and volunteered to do a five minute “show and tell” at the April meeting. Only five minutes?! Anyway, I decided to (try to) do a sampling of how my work has changed over the years, beginning with how I learned to stitch as a kid and the last kit I ever did when I was in college …

The Chase Sampler, 1970s

Then moving on to my time as the Needleworker for Colonial Williamsburg in the early 1980s, when I taught students how to stitch silk on linen samplers …

while making canvaswork …

and marking linens …

Followed by my library career days, when I only made time to stitch when on vacation …

as recounted in the post Sampling life: a family in stitches.

Culminating with my retirement, when I realized that cross stitch samplers were no longer what I wanted to do, after one last go at it …

But I’m most looking forward to recounting how I found Jude Hill’s Spirit Cloth and a lively blog community of stitchers: the Kindred Spirits who have sustained me ever since (many of their blogs can be found in the right side bar). Jude’s online workshop Spirit Cloth 101 led to the creation of my now preferred modus operandi, which I refer to as “patchplay” …

the development of which was documented during the creation of Prairie-tea-dyed cloth Land of Flood and Drought 2015 (best understood by going to the end of the 19 or so posts and reading them chronologically).

That in turn led me to Remember 2016, my favorite sampler to date, which shows the way I now learn by playing …