Stitching, Stitching

I am on the home stretch with the "Patience" sampler, with just a few more repeats of the green border, about half of the red flowers, and filling in the rest of the tiny landscape.  I'm still getting a big kick out of it, the over-the-top-ness of those letters!

(You can see where I changed my mind, not having believed the designer when she said to use two threads for the double running stitch around the letters -- I did Q, R, and S with one thread, then realized that she was probably right, and carried on with two threads, going back over R and S later to plump them out, as it were.  Haven't done Q yet, as I can't decide if it looks anemic or if I should leave it!)

Continuing my series of mini-quilts-turned-placemats, here is one to the "Brick Road" pattern from Temecula Quilt Company, the original of which ended up in my sampler quilt.  (I am not exactly learning to love orange, but perhaps at least to accept it ... in very small doses ...)

And the Broken Dishes from Prairie Children and Their Quilts by Kathleen Tracy.  This one is a kind of friendship piece, the whites being almost all TQC's but the others being some of my own stash (including scraps left from Laura's quilt and my big half-square triangles), some of Betty's from the estate sale, and some from a garage sale at the end of my street a few weeks ago -- we shared a wry laugh about fabric acquisition.

I'm enjoying the smallness of these projects, easily manageable in a few days, even the hand-quilting.  Very satisfying.

And -- I couldn't believe my luck -- at a swap meet a few weeks ago I found this sampler dated 1830, and bought it for a song, a pittance.  I was not surprised when I sent a photo to Amy Finkel and she replied, briefly but kindly, that it is not worth conserving, but very happy when she agreed that it is indeed from 1830.  I plan to rechart it ...

Comments

[CLAUDE]

Bonjour, c'est magnifique ! quelle patience, et quel talent ! Claude

[Tricia]

I agree with you on the joy of quick projects. It's nice to have a mix of projects going so there's always something to fit your mood.

On the sampler you are working on, is the letter to the left of the R an old fashioned Q? It's so unusual.