Redwork Sampler

I'm taken with cross-stitch red work and I thought I'd share one I made and got framed.    

 The framed sampler adorns our new home. It's a wedding, alphabet and Quaker motifs all rolled into one sampler.

 Detail of some of the motifs in the sampler.

I'm sorry if the pictures are hazy and bit distorted because it's behind glass and I had to try and avoid reflections besides I had only the use of my cellphone camera. The cord to transfer photographs from my camera to my laptop seems to have developed a problem so I'm unable to share any of the pictures on my camera. What a bummer. I have all the pictures for a tutorial on how I made the Monsoon fiber book but it's going to have to wait. Oh well, it's not the end of the world.

Hope you're having a wonderful creative week.

Winter Sampler.... stitched and ready to frame

There... the Winter Sampler is all stitched and ready for framing. Needs to be ironed.

And the Winner is.......

The winner of the heart sampler I'm happy to announce is Chris Daly. R did the honours and picked the winner.

I'd like to thank all who left a comment and made this little giveaway a memorable one, its motivated me to have more givewaways. So there will be more opportunities to win and hopefully it will also be something you'll want to win!

Chris I'll be emailing you to get your mailing adress right after posting this on my blog so I can send the sampler across to you in Wisconsin.


Have a great week everyone.

Giveaway for my 125th post

This is my 125th post and I decided to have a little giveaway to celebrate.
The hundredth post or a blog anniversary is more traditional occasions for giveaways but I couldn't think of anything for a giveaway at those points.
My current obsession with hearts helped to create this little cross-stitched sampler of hearts
and what a happy coincidence that its also my 125th post.
So if you'd like to win the heart sampler which measures 13.5"x 8.5" and is embroidered with cross-stitch on unbleached cotton, please leave a comment and make sure there's some way I can contact you. You have until Friday 19th June 5pm IST which translates to7.30am EST,12.30pm GMT, 7.30 pm in Hong Kong ,to leave a comment.

Let me take the opportunity to thank all those who subscribe to and follow this blog, as well as all those who visit and leave positive comments which I appreciate and thrive on.

Have a fantastic weekend.

Heart sampler is now complete.

Ta-dah! the heart sampler I've been working on is complete.

Wondering whether it needs a border to tie it all up neatly. What do you think?

The net has thrown up so many heart motifs which I couldn't just leave as graphs so I've decided to make a second one. I'm sure there will motifs enough to make a hundred but I'll stop at two, besides I have limited wall space to display them on.

Update on the heart sampler

I've been working on the Heart sampler.

Sue , thank-you for the pages of hearts you scanned and sent me, a number of them now feature on my sampler. The little gingham heart and the heart outlined with flowers in the image above as well as the two plaid hearts in the images below are some which Sue sent me. I hadn't thought of leaving some stitches uncrossed in order to create the effect of the warp interlacing with the weft in the plaid and gingham hearts.

I've also discovered that a number of heart motifs feature birds. Its got me wondering about a number of things.

In which period were they created? Who created them, men or women.

Where did these type of hearts featuring birds originate?

What objects were ornamented with these hearts? and why birds?

I've heard of the use of the Sarus Cranes as a symbol of fidelity and loyalty because they pair for life but the birds I've seen don't resemble cranes so which bird is depicted?
What about the heart used primarily in text messages? It's in the heading of the post.(using the little symbol here is creating havoc with the html code which I don't have a clue how to fix and blogger is giving me a hard time today uploading pics etc ) Now back to the little heart symbol. I think whoever created it is so clever and I need to feature it on my sampler, after all its the evolution of the heart symbol.

That's the sampler to date. I'm on the look out for smaller hearts to populate the empty spaces, I'd like it to be chock full of hearts.

On a separate note - I've become an affilate of Amazon and Flipkart. You will see the banners on the side bar. Should you wish to shop online I would appreciate it if you could click on the Amazon or Flipkart banners/buttons and make your purchases.Amazon and Flipkart will pay me a small percentage of the value of your transaction without increasing the cost for you by even a cent. Thank you and happy shopping.