Dreary Days and Sunshine Sampler!

Everyday around 4:30 I look up and panic a little.  My brain registers the time as approximately 7:30, and I have to remind myself everyday that it's not even dinner time yet.  Living on the easternmost part of the eastern time zone is a bummer at this time of year. There is not a lot of daylight.  On top of that, we've been having some very November like weather these past few days.  Both weekend days started out rainy and windy and damp.  

All that is to say that I am excited for the happy accident that finds this sampler touching down in the shop this month, instead of last summer, which the schedule had planned for it.

My friends, writing a book is hard (and fun!) work, and the best laid plans in the studio have often gotten pushed aside for one deadline or another this year.  The post book to-do list is getting pretty epic.

I was excited, one morning last summer, to get an e-mail from a Canadian thread dyer by the name of Lorraine Stobie, who was interested in including her threads in my Subscription mailings.   Yes! I said (those went out Friday- Thanks, Lorraine!) and I also proposed another collaboration.  Sitting next to me on my studio table that day was this newest sampler, hot off the presses and glowing bright yellow, just like her jewel colored threads.  What if we both embroidered our own version of the sampler using her threads?  She agreed, and we exchanged packages.  I was thrilled to get a pile of her threads and spend time day dreaming about how I was going to embroider it.  And then.....and then.....I got knee deep into writing a book.

Flash forward to two weeks ago when I was teaching at Penland and Lorraine sent me these photos of her finished sampler.  What a beauty!  I love the way her threads look on the sampler, and I was thrilled that she allowed me to publish them here and in the shop.

One day I cannot wait to have time to spend a sunny Sunday stitching this design.  It calls for a tea party- with lemon curd tartlets and black currant tea and champagne punch, don't you think?

I can't wait to see what versions the rest of you come up with.   Please, please, please keep me posted.  Thank you so much....