Progress Made

I am almost done with the second medallion. Have changed the colors a little.

My Mary Update

I have come to affectionately called my Mary Wigham project my “downstairs” project. I keep it downstairs to work on whenever I have a few moments in between house chores. Most days, I get by with barely five stitches. But the meager five stitches are better than none as I am five stitches closer to the finish line. Here is what I have so far:

The yellow and the dark blue are the latest additions:

The reason I am stitching Mary and hopefully a bunch of other Quaker samplers is because I want these samplers to compliment the Quaker Birth Sampler I am stitching for my daughter. I hope in about 5-6 year’s time, I shall have enough Quaker samplers stitched to fill up a wall… at least that’s the plan in my little head!

Happy Mary-Wighaming, Everyone! :)
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February Progress

The entire U.S. has had terrific stitching weather this winter, don't you think? Here's Mary in progress the morning after a Wisconsin snowstorm.

I dyed my own silk and linen for this project, and have been intimidated by choosing color substitutions; but the experience has been SO valuable! I'm growing increasingly confident in just intuiting choices for this motif and that -- just laying the skeins down and FEELING which one works.

My only regret has been lavender. All the other colors were deliberately dulled down. I was inspired by the glass of water in which I soaked my eyedroppers: The mishmash of dye leftovers colored the water to a deep, slightly warm, icky gray. I called that glassful "dirt." And every skein I dyed was subject to a wash in "dirt" to muddy the base color. But lavender somehow escaped this treatment! Amid the grayed-down colors, here's a blast of Disney-princess lavender! Argh. I've gone back and forth about taking it out, but this isn't easy with 65-year-old eyes. Still thinking about it, and still SO in love with Mary and the lovely winter she's given me.

March Update!

I am embarassed at the small amount of progress to show. The Vikki Clayton silks that are in this project are reasonably priced and very little to no shredding. And I like to use longer threads when possible.

Some project decisions have finally been made. Family initials will be substituted and since that was changing the original design, I could rationalize a few other changes too. Like using some other color than white for the blooms on the flower above--not sure what yet though.

Do you think I am being distracted by other projects? YES! There are 15 WIP's sitting out in my stitching area-way too noisy with them all calling to me! *Please visit my new blog-atwillowtreepond to see what else is calling! :)