I come across this in a drawer every so often, the outer envelope getting more and more ragged as the years pass. After my first cross-stitch piece, I was on a mailing list, and got catalogs regularly -- in one was this, a kit called simply "English Cottage Sampler". Being by then an Anglophile of some years' standing, I was charmed by it.
The kit still shows up on Ebay etc., so I guess a lot of other stitchers didn't even get as far as I did, which wasn't very. I remember finding that I'd worked one section of the water horizon too high, and for some reason -- or maybe life got in the way, those became busy years, I remember -- I couldn't face picking it out. (It's funny to think that it wouldn't faze me much at all, now. I've picked out eyelet and queen stitches! picking out crosses are child's play.)
Since this got packed away some time in the early 1990s, and I think I did not do any cross-stitch again until ... good heavens, two decades later, the name Teresa Wentzler didn't mean anything to me until recently. The earliest chart that I can see on her website is from 1989, so perhaps she was still relatively new when I bought the "Cottage" -- she is now known for intricate designs with lots of colorwork, especially with blended threads, and her designs, unlike say Darlene O'Steen's which are quite formal and squared, are full of swirls and curves. But like O'Steen, Wentzler does not stick to cross-stitch alone, and includes sometimes a number of other "specialty" stitches -- the "Cottage" for example includes Smyrna cross, Algerian eyelet, diagonal satin stitch, and lazy-daisy stitch.
It was nice to find this on Wentzler's website just now:
Background Information: This sampler was inspired by pastoral scenes from the English countryside ... (my admittedly romanticized view!) It is also my first attempt at designing a piece using whole cross stitches (except for the specialty stitches, which were also a new departure for me at the time). Samplers offer unique challenges; designing them is a welcome change-of-pace for me. Letters (alphabets) are especially interesting to manipulate compositionally ... they must not overpower, but rather, must compliment the rest of the design in order to achieve a pleasing balance.
Stitching Comments: Because it has no quarter stitches, this piece is significantly less difficult to stitch than most of my other designs. However, it is very large, and the hand-drawn chart is a challenge to read in places. Several people have told me that this piece is the very first of my designs they attempted, because of its relative simplicity ... they seemed quite pleased (and justifiably proud!) of the results.
I wasn't entirely sure when I started writing this post that I wouldn't just put everything back in the envelope, but I think now that it will go onto my frame to be worked. I have two O'Steen charts on my must-do list -- the "Floral" a.k.a. "Lady Brittany," and "Virtue Outshines the Stars" -- and I meant to start the "Floral" soon, but haven't managed to get hold of all of the overdyed threads yet, which seem even harder to get hold of the past year and a half. That's not the only reason, of course -- I should finish it for itself.
(You can still get the "Cottage" chart, as it happens ....)
