"Margaret Ann Klinedienst"

"Margaret Ann Klinedienst" sampler by Queenstown Designs.  This was certainly a challenging piece.  Some of the inconsistencies are mine, such as the slightly-yellowed flower in the top border, when I must have picked up the wrong bobbin and didn't notice until quite some time afterwards, but most of them are Margaret's -- the occasional pale leaf in the border, the wobbly corners, the not-quite-centered basket patterns.  The border motif looks like it repeats, but in fact many are just slightly different from the previous one, which I suspect means that Margaret was not working from a chart or sample, but by looking at what she'd done previously -- or not looking carefully (!).  And of course the delightfully wacky flowers hardly ever go where you'd expect them to.  These require constant reference to the chart, of course -- always time-consuming.  My re-color of the chart I've already talked about; the revised colors can be found in the Needlework album on the sidebar.  I did also find the chart difficult to read because it doesn't have an overlap -- and trimming and taping together the twelve pages as the designer suggested is an unappealingly cumbersome alternative.

But there it is.  What drew me to it in the first place -- the quirkiness, the extravagance, the pale-yellow sawtooth border around the inscription -- is all still there.

I did make a few changes from Margaret's original.  That chopped-off leaf in the border bothered me no end, so I added a row of five stitches near the outside point to make it a bit less so, and the bottom-left corner of the border was so awkward, once I came to it, that I ended up re-charting it, tweaking it just enough to retain the air of the original yet keep me from looking at it for the rest of my life and thinking, "uff, that bit bugs me!"

I can't deny that I got a bit tired of it now and then -- there is a lot of border, and I mentally kicked myself more than once for leaving most of it to the end!  But that is all behind me, and I am very pleased with the finished piece!

Comments

[CLAUDE]

Bonjour, j'admire votre patience, c'est un magnifique travail.