stitchy inchies

Fancywork, embroidery, stitchery

When I was a child in North Queensland, part of our school curriculum in year 4 (8-9 years old) was to create a "fancywork" sampler. Then as a young adult I did "embroidery". As an experienced lady - indulge me please , I now do "stitchery".
Fabric + needle + thread ... no matter what it's called, it is very dear to my heart and I always hope to be able to do it in some form or another.

For generations past embroidery was a part of life, skills being passed down to the following generations. My Nanna patiently introduced me to the art before I was old enough to start school. Thank you Nanna!

I didn't understand at the time what a marvellous gift it is to the teacher to be able to pass on their skills.
Luckily for me, my gorgeous Daughter-In-Law (D-I-L) shares my interest in creating pretty things. She has decided she wants to learn to how to do embroidery. (I promise no money has changed hands!).
Armed with cups of tea, we cruised Pinterest for ideas. We've settled on creating an embroidery stitch sampler piece each. The finished piece will be stretched over a canvas for display.

We found awesome inspiration at Purl Soho , Contented and little nest studio . 

We each have a piece of linen-y coloured linen measuring approximately 30 cm  x 30 cm. The linen is not a tightly woven fabric so the edges have been overlocked/neatened to prevent fraying while it's being handled.
Inspired by all the stitchy goodness on Pinterest, we've decided to do a grid of nine squares, each measuring one inch by one inch.

My nine squares are outlined with long running stitches which will later be removed.
With the frequent trips our samplers will make by post, as well as being taken in and out of embroidery hoops, any chalk guidelines would rub off pretty quickly.    

Each square contains one particular stitch. Square #1 is straight stitch, just easy up through the fabric and straight back down again. I think I'd like to use a special thread in three of the squares, so I've marked those squares with big crosses.

Now that I have filled square #1, my sampler is off to visit with my D-I-L who will use straight stitch to make a border around any of my nine squares and fill square #2 with our next stitch ...

back stitch.

And while D-I-L is doing all that on my sampler, I will be doing the same on her sampler, because we liked the idea of each having a sampler we'd worked on together.

I'm looking forward to receiving her sampler in the mail any day now ... don't you just love receiving snail mail :)

I hope you've found a little time all to yourself today to do something just for you,
Best wishes,
Kellie
xo

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