Tom Foolery

For my first reproduction sampler I chose a very funky one, from Hands Across the Sea Samplers. This is what attracted me off the bat.

This clown. I hadn’t seen anything like him in other samplers, not that I have done extensive research. I also thought I liked the haphazard nature of this one. This is how the sampler got it’s name, from this fellow. Nicola has no idea who the girl was who stitched this, or when. (Its’ always young girls). Clearly she was a free spirit and just did her thing.

The finished sampler. It has many of the traditional elements, a house, many animals, Adam and Eve, bowls of fruits, some human figures. This girl went to town! I chose the wrong linen, it was a Weeks dye works and it was flimsy. At 36 count I used one thread over two, and the coverage isn’t great, but I felt that two over two would be too much for this flimsy fabric. I’m glad to say that it should fit nicely in a 14″ x 11″ frame, since I’m not in love with this and don’t want to spend too much money framing this.

Here I was about halfway through. I came to realize that I prefer more order in my cross-stitch. I was off in so many places. In this case it really didn’t matter since the original creator was as well. She just went to town and filled every space.

I tried to stay close to the called for colors, sort of sorry I did, because the contrast on the house isn’t really there. Halfway through I started playing more with the colors. There are 3 or 4 shades of green. I can understand a dark and a light. My feeling is, she worked one area, ran out of that color and picked up something close.

There wasn’t much rhyme or reason to the border, initially she worked it out symmetrically, although the colors changed.

Then she didn’t match up the diamonds

kupbezrecepty.com

, oh, even back in the day design irregularities are part of the work. Which gave me a lot of freedom for the same.

Love this guy on the chimney.

And this lady, yes, if you look at the whole, Adam and Eve are there as well.

Animals and crazy flowers abound.

Love the basket of cherries (it may be called something different), once again, she had no interest in accuracy.

I squeezed my own initials in there. I will try to avoid one over one is the future – yikes! Maybe I’ll try it on a 28 count, but this was tough! At least my initials are right next to what I call an elk, in honor of my son.

Yes, I’m happy to have done this. I am interested in some more traditional samplers. All of this is very calming to me and it’s a fun adventure. I even started a group of stitchers, so far we meet once a month at my house. If ever we can meet in a restaurant without mask, well go there, simply because I’m not available every month. As much as I’ve enjoyed watching Floss-tube, meeting in real life is so much better.

yes, I’ve already started a new project.

Leah

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