"Winter" Sampler Sunday

It was 70 degrees today and yesterday, which is extremely odd for Virginia in the winter. I'm not complaining though. I headed to Fairfax County yesterday on some errands and to see my sister (Hi, Sis! Lunch was grand!) and decided to pay a visit to my LNS #2. I feel very fortunate that there are two really good LNS's within an easy drive of my home. The one I visited yesterday is called In Stitches, in Alexandria. The two shops I frequent couldn't be more different, even though each of them is really well stocked with yummy charts and fibers and neither ever disappoints. But they each have a different flavor or orientation. In Stitches is the quintessential sampler shop, and stocks many of the European samplers as well as Scarlet Letter designs. They also have a great many quaker samplers. Because it's only fair to spend money at both places of course, I bought some nifty stash while I was there. I was able to kit up Procession from last week's post, and bought this little winter project also. It's by Country and Colonial (yet another wonderful New Hampshire designer), which I had not heard of before, and it's called "Season's Greetings." It offers two variations on the design; I am stitching the one I saw as stitched model, which doesn't include the words, making it less Christmas-y and more wintery. I started it this morning (and, if you're keeping track, I am interrupting the small project I started last week which I began as a distraction from the large Whale Hunting Project. In other words, I have been distracted from my distraction!)

What I especially love about it is that the design is stitched with just five colors of DMC plus Balger High Lustre blending filament (the really shiny gold). It's hard to tell from the picture with the chart, but some marvelous snowy effects are managed even with so few colors. I'll show you as I go along....hopefully the camera will capture them accurately. Fortunately, I'll have some time to stitch tomorrow as I have the day off and have to stay home while the fix-it men are here sprucing up our old house with new bathroom floors and fixtures so that we can sell it. Here are the first of the little trees. I'm stitching it on (I think) blue spruce 32 count linen, over 2.

Here's a little more progress on By the Bay Needleart's "Meadow Hills." Donna, the designer of this lovely and very New England-y chart, stopped by my blog to comment. I love meeting the designers of the charts we stitch! You can see her blog at http://bythebayneedleart.blogspot.com/. Welcome, Donna! Do they put something in the water in New Hampshire to turn out so many needlework designers and expert stitchers?

As I didn't receive a single stitchy thing for Christmas, I treated myself to a little stack of sampler charts from Homespun Samplar after the holiday. What joy to have a bunch of samplers arrive in the mail. This was one of them, by Moira Blackburn and is called "Keep Me Sampler." I love the balance and symmetry of this composition. I think the border flowers are beautiful and the central house and especially the willow tree are gorgeous. This sampler is intended for 35 or 32 count linen (no color specified), using Weeks Dye Works and DMC threads.