Celle 1826 stitch-a-long

I made a lot of progress on my Celle SAL. I started each motif on the left side so that I can pick my work up and find an area that is suitable for my stitching opportunities. There are easy motifs to do when chatting with a friend or watching TV and harder ones to take advantage of time when there are no distractions. I find it so much easier to work this way. We do this SAL on the last day of the month and the first 2 days of the next. As can be seen from the dates on the photos, I kept on working until April 8th. I just had to get to the motif with a tiny bit of wine color which really perks the sampler up. It is amazing that such a little bit of color can make so much difference.

Progress on Meinen Sampler

I have been stitching up a storm lately. It is so beautiful out on the upstairs porch and I find it compelling. I know that heat and humidity will soon strike Amelia Island Florida and I will be inside forever grateful to the inventor of air conditioning, so I am feeling only a little guilty for being so trifling.

It may be hard to see on these pictures, but the fabric is actually a color called platinum, a very light warm beige gray. It is similar to the tan of this blog. It is a beautiful shade and works well with these colors. I am working on the large lawn area around the cottage which contains numerous odd animals. It is hard to put it down when one of them is emerging.

I'm also finding more about my great-grandmother...clues to the person she was. Mother said that she alwas greeted them saying, "Wie gehts." (I hope I have spelled that correctly.) When she left, she always said, "I go now." This is an important clue because her parents were from Belgium, a country with three languages, French, German & Dutch. Her father's name was Pierre, but he was also called Peter. She may have spoken some French, but this indicates that German was her native language.

Great Grandma Meinen

I need another sampler to work on this year about as much as I need a 6th toe, but the creative juices got going and I just had to get this done. It has been floating around in my brain for a long time now and suddenly, it was just like labor pains. I just had to give it birth. You can double click on the picture to get a larger size and then click in the bottom right to get it big enough to see my wierd animals. I just was looking at a sampler book and they followed me home.

This is the story of my Great Grandmother, Anna Marie Stoffel. She was born August 24, 1873 in Tilden, WI. Her father was born in Barnich, Belgium and her mother was born in Toernich, Belgium, but both of those towns are now in Luxembourg. They immigrated to Wisconsin in 1868. It was a rough land then. While I was doing the genealogy, I realized that Grandma's mother had made that long voyage with 6 children ages 2 to 12. She got off the ship on August 10, 1868 and took a train to Eau Claire, WI and then made the 30 or so miles to Tilden by wagon. Twenty-five days later, she gave birth to her 7th child!

Grandma Meinen came from strong stock and she would need it. Her husband, Peter Meinen died March 13, 1918 at the age of 47. Grandma was 44 and her youngest child was 6. Her only son, Gib, was 11. We don't think much about whether we have sons or daughters, but for a farming family it was critical. Fathers looked at each son as potential helper on the family farm. Land was cheap, but a successful farm took a lot of work. Daughters could help some, but not the way strong sturdy sons could. There were six daughters in the family before a son came along and Peter died before Uncle Gib was ready to take over. It all fell to Grandma Meinen, her older daughters and a hired man.

Just to work the farm was difficult, but in the late twenties, things began to get hard for the farmers. Rains didn't come when needed and prices skyrocketed. Things began to get out of control and then came the Black Friday when the bottom fell out. A lot of farmers had borrowed money when the crops were bad and they couldn't grow enough feed for their cattle. Their ancestors had cleared the land and poured their lives into it, but many of their descendants couldn't hold on. Many men lost their farms or sold out for a fraction of the value.

How did a woman with 7 daughters and 1 son make it on that farm? I don't know, but I am sure that it wasn't easy. It took determination and hard work. My mother told me about her story when I was doing some genealogy and I kept thinking that the story shouldn't die. I remember Grandma Meinen, but I was 9 when she died at the age of 80, so I didn't know her well. She raised a family who loved and supported each other and they were always close. They all raised fine families or their own. What a legacy!

I wanted to make this sampler to celebrate her life. I used a border I found in a French sampler book to represent her French Belgian ancestry. The scene at the bottom is a combination of French & German as was her family. I listed all her children, one of whom, Henrietta, is still alive and well at 93. The house looks like the houses found in the Belgian countryside and the animals don't look like anything I've ever seen, but they are charming. I couldn't find a nice flying bird, so I perched a blue bird on the chimney. He is way too big, but I couldn't seem to get him to leave.

I'm not sure I am finished with this sampler yet, so if anyone has any great ideas, feel free to speak up. I'll probably change it when I start to stitch. I am toying with the idea of doing it on 32 ct. Dirty Linen, but I'll have to see how it looks. The original idea was from a sampler made in 1905 in Wisconsin or Michigan, but I have changed it so much only the skeleton of the idea survives.

There are so many people in my ancestry that I'd like to celebrate. Someday I hope to have my sampler wall full of them...along with my 6 Permin Dutch/German samplers, And they Sinned, Dutch Beauty, all the samplers I have marked in Fine Lines and SANQ and about 50 more! If there was only enough time.

Workshop with Lorraine Mootz

What a great time we had this weekend! Lorraine Mootz came to the Azalea House Sampler Guild. Jill arranged to have Lorraine come to the Azalea House and give us a wonderful slideshow and lecture on her great collection of needlework tools. What a fount of information she is! In the afternoon we worked on an exquisite kit she designed for us from a needlebook in her collection. I can't wait to get mine done and use it for my new favorite John James petite needles. Years ago needles were very precious and well cared for. I like my little needles so well and I can't get them locally so I kind of know the feeling.

Several of us stayed the night at the Azalea House Bed & Breakfast and had the opportunity to have dinner with Lorraine and catch up on her busy life and hear about some of her work at the Celle Museum in Germany. I'd love to see her collection of samplers and tools and I have long planned to go to Celle with a German friend of mine and now I have another reason to put that trip at the top of my list.

Lorraine graciously gave me a consult on my Dutch sampler. I had been concerned about the church and it was so great to be able to talk to someone who has so much experience. I feel better about it now and happy that my instinct was right.

I also made some changes on my sampler again. I'm wondering if I'll ever be satisfied. A little problem with Caleb and Joshua bothered me, so I finally frogged it and changed them. Now their faces are a little more distinct and I moved the whole works up a little. I should have changed it when I first noticed it. It just kept nagging at me. I feel like I have to offer my very best for my 9th great grandparents...gee, I hope they were nice people!

I also added a cute little Weather Pixie to the blog. She tells me how to dress for the weather. She's so cute, I decided to put on another one to show me the weather in Virginia where most of my family is. Click on the pixie if you want to see your weather.

Staats Sampler - Progress

The designing process goes on. I've made some more changes. I knew it would be this way and I enjoy the freedom I have to change things around. I'm stitching down the left side and I decided the deer didn't stand out enough from the fencing, so I frogged what I had and made him a shade darker. I am pleased with the results.

I lined up the motifs with the border and HORRORS! I was off by a row and the mistake was in the very first motif. The little bird's neck is two rows long and I only put one. What to do? Well, it's my sampler, so I just deleted a line. I'm using PCStitch Pro to do the graphing and it wasn't very hard. I did have to juggle the motifs a little bit to move them into position without catching the motifs to the right of them, but it wasn't hard...the wonders of technology! I remember back when I charted everything by hand. I'd be trying to remember that my count was off as I started each motif.

It's going faster than I thought it would. Part of it is the size of the motifs. Most are the perfect size for an evening or two and it's hard to put it away when I am almost finished. I just have to see how the finished motif will look, so I've spent some late nights.

I'm going to a mini sampler retreat in Palatka, FL. It is our regular sampler guild meeting which is held at the Azalea House B & B. A few of us are going down the day before to get some extra stitching in. Lori Mootz is giving a needlebook class and she is also doing a slide show for our workshop. It should be a great class and lots of extra stitching too.

Aftermath of Christmas and New Years

Well, Christmas and New Years are over. All of the memories of 2005 are created and can never be changed. Each of my projects brings back the memories stored while I was working on them. When psychologists talk about memories, they say that odors bring back our strongest memories, but for me, it is my handwork. I have a crewel mirror I made when my son was a toddler. He's 38 now, but when I look at the picture, I see two little areas at the very top that I forgot to stitch because he managed to disappear while I and 7 friends were watching him. He was a little Houdini and he could disappear right before our eyes. I was checking the embroidery for errors or undone areas and I put it down to go and corral him. When I picked it back up I thought I had finished checking it and didn't catch the omission for about 10 years. Looking at the mirror brings back memories of a little blond head ducking around the corner of the townhouses.

After Christmas shopping was great as far as my samplers went. Mom & I went to Richmond, Fredericksburg and Williamsburg. Of course, we went to yarn shops and cross stitch shops. I went in one for some linen for my Christmas Sampler and on the sale table were back copies of "Fine Lines." If you are not familiar with it, it is a historical sampler guild. They were 75% off and I got 7, all they had. What a wonderful surprise! I took the magazine for several years, but then stopped when I started a couple of knitting magazines. These cover almost all the issues I've missed at a fraction of their cost. Now I just have to see if I can get the 2 or 3 between the time I quit and when these issues pick up. I really miss the magazine, but I'm downsizing and space is becoming a problem. Fortunately, they are small and don't take up much space.

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.