Strawberry Sampler

Last week I started "A Strawberry Sampler" by Eileen Bennett of Sampler House. The Swan Sampler Guild had her come quite a few years back, in 2005, I believe. I learned so much from taking her class. I was just a newby in the Guild at the time. I've always wanted to stitch this one. It has a great saying: "A soft answer turneth away wrath." I'm telling you though...I have done a LOT of reverse stitching on this...and not with the queen stitches...it was that darn border that wouldn't match up, due to me thinking I knew what I was doing! RIGHT! I had to almost completely reverse stitch the whole dang thing! Finally, I realized that I needed to pay better attention....ya think? Here's a few snippets...it's stitched on 32 ct Belfast with just plain ol' DMC! I'm really enjoying the queen stitch strawberries much more than I thought I would!



And yes...I'm the lucky recipient of the beautiful new needle minder from Paula at Kelmscott Designs! I think it goes very well with the piece I'm stitching!


This week I also drove up to the Bush for just a skein of thread....yeah...just a skein of thread for sure:

I got some fabric for Mary Wigham...a whole half yard of 36 count Barn Owl! Some linen and threads for an upcoming Swan project, Blackbird Designs Small Token with linen and threads, and a fabulous Autumn Sampler that the Bush had stitched up with their conversions! Too fun...and of course I wanted to start ALL of them right when I returned home!

EDITED TO ADD: A yard of that linen was 100.00 per yard...therefore, I was trying to wrap my head around the fact that I paid 50.00 for a "whole" half yard of that piece of linen! I know it's going to be so fabulous stitching on it!