I'm on a Roll!

Willow Trees Sampler, City Stitcher (c 1989)
Called for DMC flosses, random fabric

Yeah, I'm still talking about that drive back from Maine last week. Once I finished Blue Snowman, and then ran out of Deep Sea for the Dog Lessons, I moved on to Willow Trees Sampler. I needed another week or so but--voila--more completed stitching happiness! I am beboppin' and scattin' all over this cross stitch thing! Woot!

Sorry for the horrible photos, but we're having a stormy day to warm up for the hurricane bearing down on us. You know, so the ground will be good and juicy and the trees will have the tendency to fall over. Excitement!

The one change I made was not stitching the initials in the prescribed Algerian eyelet stitch. I took a before picture under the Ott light but it didn't come out well enough to see. You'll have to trust me, it looked like poop. Instead I went with a Smyrna stitch--like an Algerian eyelet without diving down the middle. I like it much better.

The House that Ellery Built

This week has been tense. My dress for the wedding isn't completely altered. Because I have a "woman's" figure on a petite frame, I had to order a size cut for an amazon. They are having to remake it. The first woman I brought it to couldn't make it lie nicely on my chest. She was trying to preserve the cut of the dress. I say who gives a fuck about the intention of the designer? We have to make it work on my body! I called for an appointment with a local seamstress but she won't be in until Friday. Her son assures me she can remake it in five days. Let's hope!

I had an interview today, and I'm not happy about it. (The dude says I always say that.) I hate telephone interviews! I can never think of how to respond. I take the most literal tack and never think laterally. Suppose they ask what makes you a unique candidate. They just want to know what you think you bring to the position, what your strengths are; they don't literally want to know what makes you unique among men. Do I think of this while I am on the phone? And you wonder how come I don't have a job. I'm excellent at what I do, and I look fantastic on paper (I write a great letter) but ask me to talk about myself and I'm a blathering idiot. {Sigh.} Still waiting to hear on the job I interviewed for a month ago as well. Well, I did write to the hiring manager and she's having a time since her second in command is out on maternity leave. I have a feeling I'll get another interview for that one; it just may take another month!


I have been watching old Ellery Queen mysteries and stitching in order to maintain my balance. Jim Hutton may have been my first celebrity crush. I never wanted to miss the show when I was a young girl. He was smart and cute and tall and thin and a little bit of a dufus. Hmm, come to think of it, that's still my type!

I continue to work on Willow Trees Sampler. I've built the house and have started on the other alphabet. I also picked out this year's anniversary sampler. It's from Just Cross Stitch April 2003 and is by Brown House Studio: "A small house can hold as much love as a large one."  There's a lot of love in this small house!

It Doesn't Feel Like Sunday

I can hardly believe I've received more than double the comments on that rant post than on any post I write about my stitching. {Sigh} I'm not sure anyone wants a post where I respond to all the comments, so I've tried to respond by email. Thank you for accepting me as I am (those of you who did). You know, when I was teaching, everyone was allowed a small number of typos per paper, and even if it seems as though I came down hard on some bloggers, I do still read them. (Or look at their pictures anyway.) I try to remember that your dearth of comments on my other posts doesn't mean you're not that interested in the things I make.

On Friday, I made cake balls for our librarian's birthday but I didn't take any photos. They didn't look anywhere near as beautiful as Bakerella's but they were delicious. One of the old ladies promised to move in and clean my house if I'd bake for her. I took her up on the deal but I'm afraid she's not ready to leave her husband for cake. Would you leave your husband for cake? LOL. Another one of the women told me the cake balls were better than the big O. Seroiusly*. I think I blushed. Another woman admitted that all she could think of was Alec Baldwin and Schweddy Balls, but she eventually tried them anyway. (I followed Bakerella's directions using a lemon cake and cream cheese frosting from a can.)

On Friday night, I didn't make any sweets for the stitchers. One of these days I should, but it's so hard to get my act together in those hours between stitching at the library and picking up the dog from day care before setting off for Chadds Ford. This month, I did not work on the marquoir (shock, horror). I forgot to put it in my bag. Instead, I nearly finished Hoppin' Along Sampler, one of my CJC pieces. It doesn't look like much now, but it gets much cuter when you finish it into a rabbit.

When Sissy and I took the train to New York yesterday, I finished all the motifs shortly before we pulled into Penn Station. We visited her dress and shoes (second fitting), ate dinner, then turned around and came home. The train ride home was not as conducive to stitching (it was an older local train).


My focus piece this month has been City Stitcher's Willow Trees Sampler. Even though it is from 1989... (Hello, Lee! I didn't pick this for your Older and Better birthday project, but I certainly could have.) Even though it is from 1989, I think it seems pretty modern in part because of LHN's Willow Tree Inn (2003) but also because the colors are not dated.

Even though I have so enjoyed working on this, I'm ready to put this one aside for the rest of the month so I can get some work done on the marquoir and Love Me, Love My Dog.

* Clearly, she needs to have better Os.

I Stop to See a Weeping Willow, Crying on his Pillow

A while back, Adrienne asked me for a list of pumpkin designs since I have this unstitched pumpkin patch growing in my craft room. My other passion is for willow trees, and I half promised to put together a list of those. I’ve been thinking about all this because the project I am currently stitching has willow trees on it.

No doubt, you already know that willow trees were often used symbolically on mourning samplers in the Victorian period. Before I go any further, let me tell you, I’m no historian. One of my English professors once called my grasp on history “impressionistic,” which I thought was a pretty way of looking at it. She probably meant to motivate me to be more historically accurate, but she couldn’t. I just want to you know, that when I say “they” in the “Victorian period” I’m talking about two continents of people* who lived over a period of 70 years as if they all acted the same way all the time during those years. They didn’t. Just so you know, I know.

Nevertheless, I will say those Victorians were crazy about death. I’m serious. Photography was coming to the masses, and they would often take photos of their dead relatives** laid out in the living room. Or, even freakier, photos were taken of dead relatives made to look alive. (Clearly, Weekend at Bernie’s is part of a long tradition.) Or, freakiest of all, posed with the living. These post mortem photos, which may be the only ones in existence of the person, might be sent to all the relatives, kind of like the prayer cards Catholics give out. (I'm not a collector.) They also would use the hair of the dead in lockets—woven into knots, not just tied with a ribbon like the hair your mom saved from your first haircut—or other jewelry, or, indeed, in art. Nothing like having aunt Hilda’s hair woven into flowers to remember her by. It should come as no surprise, then, that the dead relative’s hair would also be used to stitch mourning samplers.

More on mourning and mourning samplers:

• This article from the late 70s was one of the first to examine the dead people picture thing. See if you can get it through your library.
• Scarlett letter has a mourning sampler pattern with a history of the genre (this one has another interpretation of columbines, too.)
• This sampler, in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society, includes watercolor painting on the sampler. And I thought that "embellished" cross-stitch was just a tacky modern invention.
• My impressionistic sense of history is a little outraged by the impressionistic sense of history in this one.

You can find patterns for mourning samplers here and here, the latter sans willow trees.

Interestingly enough, the several willow designs I possess aren’t mourning samplers at all.

• LHN, Willow Tree Inn
• Carriage House Samplings, Willow Tree Sampler
• City Stitcher, Willow Trees Sampler
• Hands to Work, Two Fine Houses
• Hillside Samplings, Folk Art Thread Keep (current project)
• Moira Blackburn, Keep Me Sampler
• Samplers and Such, Oriental Tin Topper Willow’s Garden
• Simply Old Fashioned, Twinkling of Willows

Found through Hoffman Distributors:

• Blackbird Designs, Willow House
• By the Bay, Willow Hill
• Carousel Charts, Willow Tree Sampler
• Carriage House Samplings, Black Willow Farm
• Carriage House Samplings, Willow
• Dames of the Needle, W is for Willow
• Hillside Samplings, Autumn Willow
• La D Da, My Ways
• La D Da, Willow Tree
• Sampler Girl, Mrs. Lincoln Sampler
• Threads Through Time, Willow

Even though willow trees are a little more difficult to find in a simple search (some patterns feature willows but don't have "willow" in the name), there still aren’t nearly as many willow patterns as there are pumpkins, which is a shame. I’ve always wanted to design a sampler with willow trees--it would be for mourning our pets. I know a good quote about dead animals (you’ll have received it from me if you blogged about a dead pet). And, well, I love the willow trees. Someday, but don’t hold your breath.

* technically, only the British are “Victorian” since she was their queen, but Americans did exist between 1837-1901(still do) and some of their customs were very similar to the English (still are)

**I don't have to tell you not to follow these links if pictures of dead people freak you out, right?

I know, three posts in one day, what am I high? Apparently, see below. Who agrees to shell out $12 to send a one pound package?

To Market! To Market!

Hillside Samplings, "Autumn Willow" You know about the pumpkin obsession, but there's a willow obsession too. Camp is in three weeks and I have three gift certificates to spend.
Workbasket, "Bunny Attitude "Loyal readers will recognize my dedication to spirals. Love it!
Plum Street Samplers, "Dead Man's Chess" The dude (chess rating 1665) took one look at it and said, "Do you know what's wrong with the chess board?" Since I have been subjected to that question a hundred times, I knew right away, the board is set up wrong. The square in the lower left corner should be white. I have been with him in a variety of places where he has told people their chess boards are set up incorrectly (stores, showhouses). In one showhouse there was a "no touching" rule that they broke so he could reset the board--in that case, it wasn't just the right hand corner, but also some of the pieces were in the wrong place. And don't get him started on that ad for some sleeping pill with Abe Lincoln. He goes nuts, e v e r y t i m e he sees it.