Finished page 8 of the "Quaker Virtues" sampler this morning! The line runs down the center of that big motif just below "SIMPLICITY", with the top of the page through the word itself -- which isn't crooked, I assure you, the fabric is just a little stretched there! I'm finding a rather surprising number of mistakes in the chart, and not just subjective things like spacing (which I admit to having tweaked here and there), but missing or extra stitches, one of which took me quite a bit of picking-out to fix, since the error was near where I started the particular motif, and I didn't realize it until I got to the next cardinal point. Oh well. I'm still enjoying the piece immensely!
Being so very near to finishing Laura's quilt (!), I felt justified the other day in starting a small knitting project (!!) -- having had a conversation with Brittany by way of the comments about Stephen Maturin's comforter, I thought, "well, I must have some suitable wool, let's just see what one of these 'comforters' looks like, eh?" This one will be the "Figured Comforter" from the 1840 edition of Miss Watts's 1837 book -- about twenty-five years after the events of Desolation Island, but presumably things didn't change overmuch between. This particular comforter's shape will narrow a bit where it rests at the back of the wearer's neck, then widen out again at the other end. (I was a bit concerned at first that it wasn't going to lie flat, but once it got a bit of heft behind it, as it were, it settled down nicely.)
This miniature sampler was finished some weeks ago, and again I put off making the frame, had trouble with same, etc. etc. etc. The chart is the "Heritage VI" by Annelle Ferguson -- I lightened all of the colors by one step, which result usually pleases me very much though in this case I suspect wasn't quite successful, but there it is. I had great difficulty getting the picture-frame molding mitered properly, so rather than keep wasting it I ended up using plain strip wood (this is 1/8 x 1/4") and "scratch carving" a simple line around the opening to make it look like a home-made frame. This didn't turn out too badly -- it looks old-ish, at any rate!
I have been reading quite a lot -- I keep meaning to write about that, then find myself absorbed in yet another book --
The "Figured" Comforter - intriguing! Glad you pointed me toward 'One More Stitch." I did discover a picture of miniature comforter there, modeled on a miniature-giant tortoise of course.
Posted by: Brittany | May 20, 2021 at 08:58 PM