Locked In

Happy Sunday morning, all! This will be a very photo-heavy post, since I went to In Stitches' Lock-In event last night. We stitched and shopped and ate and talked from 6 p.m. to past 10:00. I took my camera along to document the fun for Ellen Meyer, the owner of In Stitches. She is working on a shop blog--we'll let you know the address as soon as it's ready to go--lots of eye candy to come, including lots of charts, kits and gadgets I haven't run into in any other place on the web! And during the month of March when the shop is open every Sunday from 12:30-4:30 during the Woodlawn Plantation needlework show, I'll be helping out on Sunday afternoons. Come in and say hello! [Edited to add: the In Stitches Blog is up and running. Take a look at the goodies! It's institchesshopblog.blogspot.com]

I shopped the market finds, of course. You know I'm usually a stitcher of antique repro samplers, but I couldn't resist the cuteness here. This is a monthly from Amy Bruecken Designs for April called Lilybell April Sampler. You can't tell probably from my photo, but Lilybell is standing in the rain wearing rubber boots, accompanied by the most hilarious little duck. I bought the sampler for the duck!


This is one of Blackbird Designs' Reward of Merit little pincushion designs. I had to have it because of the rabbits, although it's small enough to stitch a handful of these designs and maybe even finish quickly. This particular RoM, called "Breath of Spring" is stitched on 30 ct. Flax Fields (R&R Reproductions) using Crescent Colors and Gentle Arts threads.


Sarah Elliot's Home Port by Primitive Traditions, along with a floss toss of the Crescent Colors and Gentle Arts threads called for. There are also 7 DMC colors not shown here. The recommended fabric is Morning Dove by Lakeside. Stitch count is 160x95 on this not-huge sampler, which reminds me of home, since I grew up just a seagull's flight from Nantucket.


"May I" from All Through the Night, a new-to-me designer. There's a rabbit here in the garden, and lots of blossoms, and it's done on black fabric (WDW Onyx 30 ct) using Gentle Art flosses. You don't have to do it on black, of course, but I think I will because it's such a striking design. It's not huge either, at 110x143 stitches.


While I strolled among the stitchers last night, I took some photos of beautiful samplers stitched by other customers. This is "Anniversaries of the Heart" by Blackbird designs, stitched by Erin. Seeing it so beautifully stitched, all in one piece, in person, made me think that I have to stitch it too. So pretty, Erin!


And this is Lela's fabulous sampler, "Jane Baxter" by Primitive Traditions (yes, the same designer who did Sarah Elliot's Home Port). Mouth-watering, and of course, I purchased the chart right away so that I can stitch Jane also.


This week I worked away on Ann Rayner. I've tweaked the colors, not really sticking with the suggested palette, because I have a wall in my home that needs brightening up. Note to Barbara at Mainely Stitching: something about this pea-green peacock reminds me of your menagerie. I wonder why?


I mentioned last week that Susan Rambo had a little color problem. I felt that the NPI purple in the outside portion of the flower was too bright, especially since it was the same color in the squirrel, but I didn't have the DMC color that the conversion was based on, so I wasn't sure. At the shop I pulled the DMC color (451) and sure enough, it was a subtle, grayish dusky mauve. So I am substituting this NPI color, 987 (Taupe Range). I'm not frogging the flower--nothing wrong with a purple flower.


Pink and Elvis approve of samplers with rabbits in them and have offered to eat the offending purple silk.


Happy week ahead!