American Sampler

My New Year's Day start turned out to be American Sampler by Sandy Orton. I have been wanting to stitch this sampler since the first time I saw it. I almost can't believe I've finally begun! I struggle so much with decisions about what linen to use, what count, what color, cottons or silks, etc. This is why I nearly always simply follow exactly what was used for the model. Way back when, the one decision I did come to was that I really wanted to stitch it with silk. I could see that this was going to be an intensive project, and I felt it warranted the extra cost of silk. That decision made, it was easiest to just stick with the AVS conversion that was supplied. I have been collecting the silk for it for literally years. See, I knew I wasn't going to be starting it for a long while and I didn't want to sink money into it all at once just to shelve it. (How sensible of me LOL...) Now that I've begun, I discovered I left one color off of my check list. I also discovered that I need more of some of the colors than I have now. I remember now that I had found a place, that you could buy silk by the yard/meter. I had taken advantage of a sale and sent them my list. Anything they had full skeins of they sent; if all they had was lengths, then they sent lengths, and anything not in stock I just kept on my list to buy elsewhere. I figured I at least had what I needed to get started, so it was much to my chagrin when I found I was completely missing one of the colors needed for the flower I'm working on. One of the reasons I like this sampler is that it employs other stitches besides cross stitch. The border is done in rice stitch which is done with two colors. It's a cool layered stitch. The bottom layer is done in one color and then the top layer is in another color. There's quite a bit of queen stitches too. I never did decide on what fabric to use. I know someone who stitched it on 40ct and I had toyed with that idea but decided against it because of the large amount of queen stitches. The final fabric choice is one I pulled from my stash, a European linen, natural 35ct Weddigen. It has a very nice hand and is what I would call a dense linen. I got it for a great price and now I wish I had bought more of it. I'm patting myself on the back for using something from my stash. (pat pat pat)

By the way, I have a duplicate of the magazine this was published in. If anyone would like to buy it just send me an email.