nimble fingers

You meet someone at puppy training in a muddy field, and you never know where that will lead to.....

I met Nicole when we were in puppy hunting-training class. We came to get to know each other because I was talking with another classmate (human) about the antics of Darwin in my sewing room. Her ears pricked up (hers, not her puppy's) and before you know it we got to talking.

Fast-forward to yesterday afternoon: Invited by Nicole a few months ago, I went to my first ever cross-stitching group. It's a group of ladies that get together to make a "vriendschapslap" or loosely translated, a "friendship sampler". It works sort of like a round robin for quilters. The first meeting each of the participants come prepared with a few things: linen, threads, a theme for the sampler, and an empty journal. Clockwise around the table, each person tells the group what they have chosen, specific things that they would like to see in their sampler, etc. My theme is letters. All sorts of letters, big and small. Their linen, threads, journal and perhaps book or patterns ( to be used for inspiration ) are then passed on to the person on their left. That person wil now stitch a motive based on the theme requested on their sampler. Then another is past on, and so forth....

At each following meeting, everyone shows what they have done, the person for whom they have done it leaving the room first. Comments, critisisms, questions, everything is discussed. The samplers rotate around the table until about a year after, everyone has added a motive on everyone's sampler when everyone gets to see their sampler for the first time complete. It looks like a lot of fun, the ladies are all quite gifted with the needle.

Finding the right motive to fit takes the most time. Then again, hunting around for the right pattern is kind of fun!
So now I'm doing a bit of early spring cleaning in my sewing room and digging up all sorts of old and new cross stitch patterns.

During our meeting, one of the ladies had something special to share. Above is the photo. This was made by a fellow stitcher using an antique letter box. She stitched the tiny motifs which were sized exactly to fit each of the little squares in the box. This examlple is in blues, with a kitchen theme. Others used different colors and a garden theme, for example. The photos don't do it justice, but it is an increadible piece of work!

My fingers itch when I see work like this - but before I get back into the swing of things, first clean....