Sampler Time

Just in case anyone is thinking that I've gone over to canvas side full-time, here's a sampler post. 

We are doing a marvelous project at the Loudoun Sampler Guild which is a year-long mystery sampler. We have volunteers from within the group designing a band a month. Our first band was provided by Betsy Morgan, who is our programs chair. 

 Thus this is my stitching of the January band. All done except for the horse. Because I keep thinking I'm going to add a fox and will need room to place him. That explains that kind of blank area in the middle.

What we are doing, is getting the design, then choosing our own colors, maybe our own stitches, and in general tweaking things if we want to.

After we received this band in January, we had a programs meeting where no one tried to fight me for the opportunity to design a band for February. I had something in mind, which is why I volunteered. 

 Thus this our February design by me. There's a bit of the March border on top of my band...

I knew about certain samplers that had bargello bits in them. In fact, in the Feller book, Volume 1, there's a sampler in the last section that has two bands somewhat like this, with a glowing words about Queen Anne in the middle. I was not going to be praising the Queen here in the U.S. And I started looking for quotes. I couldn't find anything needlework related that I could make fit in the space I was allotting. And then I tumbled across this quote by Claude Monet. It's absolutely perfect for me. 

A sharp eye might notice that my two sides are not equal. There's more on the left than the right. That's what happens when you design on the fly. I started stitching this band with the word torment and worked my way up. I didn't realize my problem until I hit the Color line and by then I was not frogging all that over one lettering. (Note: when I made my chart, I corrected this problem. Mine will be the only unevenly balanced piece, unless someone else makes a mistake.) 

When the year ends we'll have some very unique projects. At the March meeting I got to see some wonderful variations on my bargello band. They shrunk. They morphed. The color choices are magnificent. Truly amazing stuff.