This is the start of "Margaret Ann Klinedienst" by Queenstown Sampler Designs, which I was charmed by I think almost immediately. The naïve flowers, the more-than-slightly wonky basket (she was nine, Margaret Ann, when she stitched this!), the softly-faded colors -- oh yes! I've had the chart sitting on my shelf for a while, but of course had resolved to finish the "English Cottage" first -- indeed, had to, since I have only two frames for large pieces, and they were both occupied. But not long after the "Cottage" was done and out of the frame, this went in.
But as I stitched, I had a strange feeling of history repeating itself, after my "Floral" escapade -- the colors were not what I had in my mind from the photo I'd seen. Now, of course it may be that the original 1830 sampler is darker than the photo, or that the conversion from NPI Silk threads to DMC lost something in the translation -- or both, to be sure -- but either way, the lovely soft faded colors were a large part of the original appeal for me, and that soi-disant mahogany is in fact glaringly orange.
So I began to research, and the first thing I found was a conversion chart from NPI to DMC that is considerably different from Queenstown's version (perhaps due to new colors coming out in the dozen years since the chart was first released?). And I dug through my stash of DMC threads, and bought a few more, and sat down in the living-room yesterday in the afternoon sunlight and compared the different colorways.
The one in the photo at the top is Queenstown's conversion from the NPI used (on the model in the photograph, presumably). The 3776 Light Mahogany really jumps out -- and though I know very well that sometimes a color in the skein looks very different when stitched, often because of the colors surrounding it, well, there is quite a lot of it even in the small bit I've done so far. It's orange, I think there's no getting around that!
This selection is beginning to lighten all of the colors by at least one step, two in some cases, putting some alternatives in pairs to see which I like better.
This is a few more tweaks. Better! And below is the selection I've made -- I'm much happier with the 758 ("Terra Cotta Very Light") instead of the 3776, and the whole thing just has more of that air of the softness of age that so called to me.