Samplers for 2006 continued

This is the other sampler I will work on in 2006. It's charted by Permin and I got it from Wyndham which is where I got Zeeland. I really like the Permin samplers, especially the ones from the Celle Museum. This one is a Quaker design and I though it would help to round out my collection. It has the added advantage of traveling well. It only has 2 colors so it fits well in my organizer and I don't have to carry a whole bunch of floss minders with me.

I have a nice little rotation chart with 1 hour segments on it. I plan to work on each sampler for 10 hours and then it is on to the next one. The rotation chart wasn't my original idea, but the chart I made on an excel spreadsheet and I would gladly share it with anyone. Just email me at hawnsmith@comcast.net and I'll send it. It has really made my stitching life easier. I have several projects where I have stalled and using the chart has helped. I really don't like doing Queen's stitch and it helps to know that I only have to do them for 10 hours and then I can get on to something I like better.

Samplers for 2006

I've chosen 2 other samplers to work on this coming year. This one is from Holland and I loved the bright colors. So many of the samplers I have made are in very subtle colors and, while I actually prefer the old muted look, I also felt I needed some variety so I chose this one. I had to really watch myself as I pulled the floss for it though. I was so tempted to tone down the colors which defeats the purpose.

Dutch Sampler Changes

I've been working on my design and right away I made a change. I had some Blue Spruce floss from Weeks Dye Works and I thought it would be great on the border. The color doesn't change very much, but there is more life in it than the regular floss, especially on such a long uncomplicated border. I like the overdyed floss if the colors are very similar, so I cut the floss long and doubled it. I made a new picture of the pattern, but the change is very subtle. I am thinking about another color for the little flowers in the border also, but this will mean an online trip to my LNS.

Elizabeth McCartney Sampler

This will be my Christmas season sampler for this year and maybe many to come. I like to have something in keeping with the season to work on, so I took the Elizabeth McCartney Sampler by McIntosh Samplers and changed the colors, verse and part of the design to fit the season. This is not my original work nor a reproduction. I guess you'd call it a hybrid. Unfortunately this picture makes it look as if the lettering is done in pink, but the color is actually 498, a deep red. This is what the original looks like:

Sampler Challenge

One of my sampler groups is starting a challenge. We have to sew at least one stitch on January 1 and report our progress. Some are starting more than one sampler. What shall I start?

The first is simple. I want to start the Dutch sampler I designed for my ancestors, Elizabeth Gelderner and Adam Staats who were married August 28, 1744 in New York. They started the States family in America. I am not sure if they were born in Holland or in New York. Maybe I can find out by the time I finish the sampler.

I don't know anything about their lives, but I can do some more research on the early New Amsterdam/New York families to get an idea. People often think that genealogy is a dull and dry hobby, and if you are just in the business of gathering names, I guess it is, but people now are more interested in genealogy as family history and in that, it is dynamic and challenging.

I designed this sampler using a book of Dutch sampler motifs of the time by Albarta Meulenbelt-Nieuwburg. Most of the motifs were found in samplers from the era although I didn't limit them to only the narrow time period when Elizabeth would have been a young girl doing samplers. I was more interested in the balance of size and color than the right dates. I don't really know when Elizabeth was born, but it was probably between 1722 and 1730 based on the date of her marriage.

This Too Shall Pass

I belong to a group called Katrina's Stitchers. We are going through our stash of needlework projects to share with some of our sister and brother stitchers who lost everything in the recent hurricanes. I wanted to add something that meant a lot to me during a very tough time in my life. It was just a simple verse from the Bible, but as so often happens, it was what I held onto like a life raft. During that time, I cross-stitched the verse, "This too shall pass." I put it in my bedroom where I could see it every day. It kept my mind on something I believed with all my heart; that God was with me and that He knew what was going on. He would give me the strength to overcome whatever He allowed in my life.

Eventually, I did make it through that dark night of the soul. I came through it a wiser and better person with strength that I never imagined I had. The verse remained on my wall until I had a very dear friend who was going through her own difficult journey. I wrapped up the framed verse and gave it to her. I told her how it helped me and asked her to keep it as long as she needed it and to pass it on to someone else in difficulty. I don't know where that picture is now, but my prayers are with whomever needs it.

When I saw all the devastation that the hurricanes wrought I responded like many Americans. I sent a donation to the Salvation Army and then pondered what else I could do. I live on a barrier island, so I felt a kinship with my fellow stitchers. On one of my online needlework groups someone suggested sending some of our stash to stitchers who had lost everything. (See my earlier blog.) I wanted to share the verse that had meant so much to me, so I designed something similar to what I had years ago, but I made it look more like New Orleans. I used PCStitch and incorporated some of the lovely wrought iron work on the balconies in the old part of the city and some of the flavor of New Orleans. The pictures are of 3 designs I plan to use and share with my fellow stitchers on Katrina’s Stitchers.

This Too Shall Pass with Cross

This is the real source of strength. I don't know why God allows such devastation or personal tragedy's, but I know that He hurts with us and that He will make something good come out of it. The world is full of heartache and is governed by natural laws. Sometimes He does intervene with what we call a miracle, but there are times when He doesn't and I guess we just have to accept that. I know He has always been there when I have needed Him and I have seen Him hold up so many people through every sort of trial and tragedy.

More: This Too Shall Pass

This design reminds me of the church on the square downtown.

Stitcher's stash and Katrina

I belong to a stitcher's group that is trying to get together stitching supplies for Katrina victims. We want to help our fellow stitchers build their "stash" again. Someone objected to the idea, saying that it was in poor taste and that hurricane victims didn't care about their supplies and that they were only concerned about the necessities of life.

I have to disagree about a stitcher's stash not being important to restore. When I evacuated from Floyd, I took my collection of all the DMC floss and my favorite projects. I knew they would be important to my personal recovery. Of course, people need food and shelter most, but they also need things that sweeten their lives. For most of us, stitching in any form helps us to sort out the problems of the day and keeps us sane. You might say it is our "blanky." Our stash looks forward to a future and people who have lost everything need to look toward a future that isn't bare bones necessity. They have to know that life will be normal again.

If we were the Red Cross, it would be stupid to collect stitching supplies. Organizations such as that deal in absolute necessity, but we are stitchers and we are reaching out to fellow stitchers and telling them that they will get their lives back. Their world is made up of incredible loss and we want them to be able to look forward to planning projects.

I read a book about the great cathedrals and the author said that there was a time when it was thought wrong to pour so much money into cathedrals while there were so many poor in the surrounding areas. In some cases, work was stopped on some cathedrals and, surprisingly, it was the poor who objected the most. Their lives were mired in grinding poverty, but they could always go to their cathedral and be surrounded by incredible beauty. The cathedral was the only beauty they owned. The community gave it's best to the cathedral. It employed generations of craftsmen in the surrounding areas and even those who could not contribute their work took pride in it. It wasn't too long before work on the cathedrals was started again.

Life cannot be just about the practical, even in the earliest stages of recovery. There has to be room for hope. For a stitcher, new projects mean hope. The hurricane victims will have days and days of clean-up. As they sift through the rubble they will be pierced again and again by evidence of destruction and loss. It will all seem hopeless and then someone from our group will come to them and let them pick out what they need for a new project. At the end of a day of hard work and frustration, they will grab the needles and yarn, or cross stitch or needlepoint and just for an hour or so, they will feel normal again. The day won't be all hardtack and beans. They can look forward to more stitching supplies as soon as they have room for them. They can look forward to getting their life back again.

Hurricane Knitting

I belong to a group called "Hurricane Knitters." Someone wondered if it might be better to change to a name that didn't bring up such bad memories, but most everyone said they wanted to keep the name. I'd wanted to keep it also. It reminds me what a comfort my knitting is to me during times of stress. During the Floyd evacuation and other hurricanes we have ridden out with no power for days and days I did a lot of knitting. I think I have finished a kids sweater for every hurricane. To me, it is something creative coming out of something negative. It also reminds me of all that the Katrina victims have lost. It isn't only the big things like houses and furniture. It's all those little things that make our life uniquely ours.

If I lived near those places where the hurricane victims were staying, I'd bring some of my stash and needles and teach knitting to everyone who wanted to learn. It wouldn't be much, but I know how much it comforts me and for people living in a shelter with nothing to do, it just might make time pass a little easier.

JCS about 1/3 done

Here is the progress I have made. This is really a lot of fun to work. It's easy to see how the stitcher could use the motifs. The bands above Adam and Eve would look good on the placket of a peasant blouse. Adam & Eve are more animated than in most designs & I grew quite fond of them while I was working on the motif.

JCS

JCS I fell in love with this sampler. It was really meant to be rolled up and kept in a needlework basket. The designs are random and the peacock and Lamb are upside down if Adam & Eve are upright. Band samplers and letters are at right angles to the bottom. I got this one from The Scarlet Letter. It was made in Thuringia in 1707 and is now in the German Sampler Museum in Celle, Germany.

Be Not Weary in Well Doing

This is a combination of the house sampler and the sample bands a young girl would collect to use as trimming on garments. This could be displayed or rolled up in a sewing basket to use as a pattern. This one is done in Danish Flower Thread and it is still my favorite for samplers. The rounded thread stands up on the linen and gives it a fuller look.

The Dead a Tear

The verse for this sampler reads: "Absent or Dead Still let A friend be dear A Sigh the absent claim, The Dead a Tear." I made the sampler during a time of mourning for the loss of a family very dear to me who were killed in an airplane crash. Making the sampler helped with the greiving but I am not sure why. I do have some ideas though.

First, I chose this verse from a book of sampler verses by Bolton & Coe. These two ladies went through thousands of samplers and wrote down the verses and where they first appeared. It is one of the best books on samplers that I have seen. You can't really understand the function of samplers in the rearing of young girls unless you read a wide variety of sampler verses. One of the most common threads is the brevity of life. Most of the sampler workers saw death as a constant companion. They were instructed by their mothers or teachers to adapt heavenly values because life could end quickly and it so often did. The sampler verses were designed to instill virtures, or at least make the young needleworker aware of them.

So, why did working on this sampler help me with my grief? The family was what you might call a perfect family. They were living as admirable a life as I think anyone would aspire to. They were good citizens and church leaders. The girls were popular and good students. They had so many friends who loved them dearly and yet, suddenly, they were gone. They were the kind of people that nothing bad should have happened to and the very worst happened. I had to put that into perspective and picking out the verse helped. I read so many verses and saw what a frequent companion death was to our ancestors. The verse seems to accept that friends we hold dear might die. They could also move away and the chances were that they would never be seen again on this earth.

Those early settlers from the Old Country knew that they would probably never see their friends or relatives again and yet they left to make a new life for themselves and their children. This began to put death into perspective for me. We move a great deal these days, but we are only an airplane ride away from anyone we want to see. We can call them on the phone easily and now, with cell phones, we don't even have to know where they are. We can still reach them. guess I thought that people whom I loved should always be available to me. It doesn't always work that way.

As I stitched that sampler, I thought about all these things. In a strange way, I felt a kinship with those young girls whose lives were so touched by sorrow. This world is just a temporary place for us. Ever since this sorrow, I've held my friends and family more dearly. I know they can be gone in an instant. In the stitches of this sampler were thousands of memories of my friends that I will always treasure, and a lesson taught to little girls three centuries ago.

Mourning Sampler - Della Brantner Hawn

Mourning Sampler in memory of my paternal grandmother Della Brantner Hawn.

Mourning Samplers

Why did thousands of people, mainly young girls, do mourning samplers in the 1700-1800's? Why do so many of us love them now? I admit that they fascinate me. Some of the verses are terribly morbid, some poetic, all of them filled with pathos.

The picture above is the first mourning sampler I did. I was drawn to it for reasons I don't really understand. I missed my grandmother who had died a few years before I did this sampler. She was an important person to me and she was gone. Life had gone on without her as it always does, but I wanted to bring her along. Somehow working on this sampler and hanging it on my wall was a way of making a part of our lives. There was a link that people could see between a previous generation and me.

Working on it also brought me closer to my feelings about the loss of my grandmother. I was afraid of death. I couldn't stand the thought of it and avoided even the discussion of it. When my grandmother was dying, I told myself that she had lived a long and full life. She had stayed in her home until the month she died. I had seen her recently and had a good visit. I had been there when she was in the hospital and said my good-bys. It wasn't going to get any easier than this and I had to face it. It was time to grow up. I did, and the sampler helped. As I stitched the piece, I thought about the good things in our relationship. I thought about how lucky I was. The girl who made the original sampler dealt with a lot more death than I would in the 20th century. How many siblings had she lost? Did she even make it to maturity?

I'm sure that there are a lot of reasons for making these samplers. It was the response of a nation when our first president and leader, George Washington died. Thousands of samplers were made to honor him and to deal with the grief. More about that in the next blog.

Thank you, Ancestors

I like to do some research on a sampler style and then I pick one of my ancestors and include that person's name. After getting into genealogy, I realized that I had so many ancestors who came to the US when life was primitive. They emigrated because they wanted land and a better life for their descendants. Many came here for religious freedom. They were willing to undergo hardship for their convictions. Most knew that they would never reap the rewards themselves, but they did it for their children. The more I learned the more I wanted to honor these people, so I decided that I would make my samplers as a tribute to them. Some of these samplers I design and some are reproductions or in a particular style.

Most of my ancestors were here before the American Revolution. That meant that they endured a harrowing 4-6 month journey across the ocean, and there was very little here when they reached these shores...if they survived. I may have had a wealthy ancestor here or there, but most of my ancestors were small landowners. Their houses were built with wood they chopped. The food they ate was raised by them. Life was fraught with danger. There is a record in the church in Rhode Island that my ancestors went to. A couple was killed by Indians while they were on the way to church. My ancestors were there when it happened. Scary, isn't it?

Although these samplers are a tribute to these women, I have to be careful to stitch the tribute in such a way as to not confuse sampler collectors 100 years from now. Can you imagine what a chore it would be to date such a sampler? They'd have 21st century fabric and thread and a date of 1700. The more I learn about samplers, the more I learn about my ancestors..and about myself.

Dutch Sampler I

Dutch Sampler I: This was a very easy sampler and a lot of fun to work. The motifs are taken from German and Dutch samplers and was published in a McCalls magazine. I have a companion piece I hope to finish this year.

No Winter in Thy Year

This was a fun sampler based on the house samplers a young girl my stitch in the beginning of her education. I could just see a young girl working on this. She would have loved putting in the dogs and cats. What about that little squirrel looking thing just outside the yard? It gives me the feeling that these samplers might have been a lot of fun for young girls as well as a means of education.

1663

1663 This is a sampler I hope to get to this year. It is a typical Dutch sampler with sample bands on the left and the names of friends and family around the borders.

The Kingdom of God

This is a sample of the two column sampler. I plan to use this format for a genealogy sampler.

Sea of Time

In honor of Elizabeth Upshur Bowdion

Elizabeth Gelderner

This sampler I designed to honor my 6th great gradmother who was born in Holland about 1772. She married Adam Staats 28 August 1744 in New York. I chose motifs from old Dutch samplers and put her initials and mine in the center.

Mary Trimble 1812

Mary Trimble made a sampler similar to this in 1812 when she was 8 years old. I tried to make a faithful reproduction but there were too many areas where I could not follow her pattern. I decided to make a sampler that was based on her sampler instead.

Mourning the Smart Family

My design: Mourning the Smart Family. This was made to coordinate with the Joanne Harvey sampler and as a memorial to dear friends who were killed in an airplane crash.

Joanne Harvey Sampler

Joanne Harvey Sampler

Mourning September 11

Mourning those who died September 11

Mourning President Reagan

Some of my favorite Samplers

We've Only Just Begun!

Just give me a needle and I'll be happy! That includes knitting needles, tapestry needles, sewing needles, embroidery needles, betweens, cross-stitch needles and crochet hooks. If you can do it with a needle, I love it.

I think better with my needles in hand. If I have to plan for a party or dinner or holiday, I head for my knitting chair and grab whatever is in progress. If you "needle" you know that this is not a waste of time. My needles help me think. They relax my mind until is is smooth as glass and pretty soon things start to come slowly to the top. I have my planner by my side and jot down what ever burbles forth.

Whether I am wound up, exhausted or wounded, my needles smooth the waters until life gets back on track again. The busier I am, the more I need my needles. There is this Zen thing...or maybe Yoga for the brain. When life unravels, my needles bring back order.