Cross-stitching samplers serve as historical artifacts that connect modern stitchers to the people who created them, and through genealogical research, we can uncover the stories behind these works. The Hannah Whitaker sampler (1821), attributed to the Aworth School in Yorkshire, England, has been researched to reveal that Hannah Dumbleton (later Whitaker) was a student at the school from 1783-1784, later becoming housekeeper and nurse there before marrying Robert Whitaker, the school's superintendent. This research demonstrates how stitching samplers can transform from decorative crafts into meaningful historical explorations, connecting us to the lives and experiences of the people who created them.
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FlossTube #32 May 9, 2026 WIP, History, and Friends!Añadido:
When you ask a stitcher who taught them to stitch, most of them will tell you they learned from their grandma or mother, or maybe an auntie or a friend.
We remember a shiny black sewing machine under a bentwood case, a jar full of buttons of every size and shape, and a tin of thread in all the colors of the rainbow.
If we're lucky enough to have grandma's quilt or mom's dish towels, these handmade objects carry the energy of the maker. We have memories and stories through the work of their hands and of their hearts. When we sit down in our favorite chair and settle into the rhythm of the stitches, each stitch we take is taken alongside generations who have shared their love of needle and thread.
Going to talk to our floss tube friends today. Art, you want to say hi to your floss tube friends? Hi everybody. This is Archie. I'm Jackie. Welcome to another episode of Comfort Stitching.
He's not usually that sweet, but he was laying down on the bed, which is his favorite place to be. So, I catch him in a relaxed state now. I kind of have a system for when I bring him out to say hi to you guys. Welcome, welcome. It's nice to see you. Like I said, my name's Jackie. You are here on my floss tube channel talking all about cross stitching. Name of my channel is called comfort stitching because isn't that what we're all after when we stitch?
Comfort of one type or another. So, um, welcome, welcome, welcome. It's Saturday, May 9th, 2026, and this is episode number 32. and welcome. I'm happy to have you here today. I have had several new subscribers over the last week. So, thank you very much. If you're new here, I'm happy that you're here. If you're returning, I'm also very, very happy that you're here. And if you're here because of Kathleen Littleton's latest video, she gave me a wonderful shout out. I want to welcome you. Or if you're not, like I said, happy to have you here. So, thank you so much. We have a practically perfect spring day here in Weston, Missouri, where I live. Little historic town just 35 miles or so northwest of Kansas City, if you're familiar with that part of Missouri at all. Um, but the reason I always like to tell you where I am is because I live on Main Street on the second floor of one of the business buildings and there's a lot going on in town today. Um, it's first of all, Mother's Day weekend.
Happy Mother's Day to all of you out there who are mothers, whether of the two-legged variety or four-legged. I consider myself a mom, too. Um, but it's graduation weekend. So, tomorrow we have high school graduation happening in town. There is a Polish pottery festival.
Archie's finding the last crumbs of his breakfast, so excuse that. Anyway, Polish Pottery Festival going on in town. And that is we have a very um busy and large uh store here in town that sells Polish pottery and they wholesale it too. So they have a lot of different designs of that style of pottery if you're familiar with it. But every year they have this little one day thing. They set up tents and booths and celebrate Polish history and food and that beautiful pottery. So there are people in town for that. There's a little craft and small business market in one of the tobacco warehouses just on uh less than a half a block away from me. And with it being a beautiful sunny day, there are motorcycles in town. So, all that to say, you may hear a variety of ambient noises today and also things that are designed to irritate Archie.
and he takes his job as security chief very seriously. So, I will apologize in advance if any of that stuff is annoying. None of which I can do anything about. So, please bear with if um that happens. Oh, and I'm forgot to mention the train. So, train goes through periodically, too. So, anyway, a lot has been happening since I saw you last. Um, right after I was here last, I uh had a Zoom stitch gathering with Sarah of Sarah Stitchy Spot. And oh, those are always so fun. If you have never been on a Zoom with other people stitching, first of all, I would encourage you to. Sarah does this I think about every three four weeks and you sign up for that in the comments on her uh floss tube channel which I will link uh below.
Anyway, what's fun about it, not only that it's a small group and you get to meet other stitchers, but she always has a surprise floss tuber and our surprise guest was Shawn the Periwinkle Stitcher. So now I have had the pleasure of meeting Shawn in the past at Sampler Symposium on a couple of occasions, but she's always a delight to spend time with, as well as all of the other folks who were on the call as well. So that was a lot of fun. And then a week later, I hosted a gathering of about 26 people right here in Weston. um our first gathering coming together stitching together stitch I call it stitch with me which I'm stitching with you you're stitching with me you're stitching with everybody else that comes we've been doing this now for a little over a year but this was the first gathering of 2026 and it was just so wonderful as it always is to see everybody and have the opportunity to stitch together in person.
We gather in a space uh next to a retail store called Floral Legim here in town.
And I've talked about Floral Legim many times as it's a store that's hard to describe.
I would say it's a store for fiber and needle work artists. not focused on cross stitch, but the owners have materials that crossstitchers would use.
So, 26 people came together um on the 25th of April. And as always, it's just one of the most lovely, wonderful days of building community, making friendships, renewing friendships that have been made at gatherings past, and I just I'm so grateful that we get to do this, and I wish more of you could come. Um, but we this time we had people from near and far. Farthest was Alabama.
I kept saying Georgia when I was talking about this, but that stitcher, uh, Danny is from Alabama. And we had Kathy come all the way from Colorado. And then there were a couple of people down from Iowa, actually several who came from Iowa. This time we had Wisconsin represented, Nebraska represented, Kansas, and Missouri. And I think that's everybody.
If I left any states out, certainly not intentionally.
And I was really um honored to have a few other folks from the Kansas City area who do floss tubes. We had Christine of Hollis Hands Creates.
Lenny, one of the Sable Stitchers. Susan came from Wisconsin. She is Susan X Stitches on Floss Tube. And then it was my extreme honor this time to also have as a guest Elma Allen, who you may all know as the designer behind Blackbird Designs. Now, she was just a guest of another person who was coming. So, she just came and stitched. It was all very low-key, but truly an honor for me that um all of you guys come and spend the day and take your time to just be here and make the day so lovely. Just truly lovely.
And not just the company, but people brought all sorts of their beautiful finished stitching items to share. We had a wonderful uh room where we could display things and there were just some very inspirational things that people brought along. And I will show as I generally do make a video or excuse me a photo montage that I will put at the end of this video of the day. So if you want to see those things and see who was here and so forth, I welcome you to stay. And I would actually recommend that you do watch it today because some of the finishes, there were three in particular that I want to draw your attention to were just extremely inspiring. There's a friend of mine who comes down from Nebraska. She's only on Instagram and her name is Ena and she's on Instagram as Lois Hills Needle Works. She stitched a couple of her samplers. She did Martha Walmsley and AG 1857 I think is the name of it. Anyway, you all will recognize it. She made them into um sofa pillows with tassel trims, velvet backing. They're beautiful.
Beautiful. She brought those along. And then Kathy, who came from Colorado, brought a sampler that was in the I would say arts and crafts style that I had never seen before. So, fairly simple, a flower and everything, but when I've shown the picture of it on my Instagram page, everybody wants to know what that one is. So, I'm just going to call your attention to that one. The name of the chart is Ida Nol. So, just saying that right now, getting it out there. Again, I'll put that in the show notes, too, because invariably somebody's going to want to know what that one is. But there were samplers.
There were animal crackers. There was the Santa nighttime stocking by um Teresa Kogat. Somebody had a finish on that. Not fully finished, but a beautiful finish. Um since I had recently shown you bead work, I had my suitcase and those beaded cuffed gloves.
I had that there as well as my Beatatrix Potter framed finish. So, we just had some beautiful things to share. So, thank you everybody for being here and making that stitch with me so special for everyone who attends. Just thank you.
Then a week after that, I think it was another week after that, I got to do another Zoom with Sarah. So, the first one I think I was filling a place she had a cancellation. So, pleased to do that. The second one I was there because I had commented on her video that I would like to attend. So I was there as a guest and the surprise floss tubers on that one were Pam and staff from Just Keep Stitching and it was so wonderful to have the opportunity to meet them. I mean they're such icons in the crossstitch world and in the floss tube world. Stephanie said that they will be celebrating. It's either their ninth or tenth year on Floss Tube. So, they would be considered some of the OGs here on Floss Tube. Wonderful. Wonderful to have the opportunity to meet them and uh have the conversation that we get into.
Again, it's a small group. I think Sarah limits it to either 10 to 12 at the most people there. So there's an opportunity to really have some conversation to share and show what you're stitching on if you would like to, but there's never any pressure to share if you don't want to. So just wonderful opportunities to uh meet other people who love doing the same thing that you do and talking about our love of crossstitching.
So with that, let's talk about some crossstitching. What do I have to show you today?
I have two surprise starts and finishes. Not fully finished, but it was a couple of smalls that I just decided, you know what? I'm going to do these. And so, I have those to share today. I restarted a project that I showed you um last week. got some new fabric from color and cotton in this teal color, which was exactly what I wanted for a project that I had already started, but I did a restart. So, I've got the start of that. And then I have some progress on a couple of things that I've shown you before. One of which is a Quaker sampler, Hannah Whitaker, that we've been talking about and trying to learn more about who she may have been.
So, I do have what I think is some exciting updates about that. So, I hope you will stick around and let's talk some stitching.
So, I'm just looking at my uh notes here. I want to be sure I have told you everything. Yes, I have before we get into the stitching. So, I'm going to pull this down. I have been filling in my book of days. We were actually talking about this with Pam and Steph.
Um I think Pam was saying she's not a person who has ever kept one of these journals and she's probably never going to be one. Um and some of you may remember this is my first time doing a book of days. I am keeping up with it.
Although I'm not putting probably as much information into it as some people do. I'm just still trying to feel my way around with a book of days to see how best I'm gonna use it. But let me get to my and I have not because I've been doing so much genealogical research. I have not been stitching every day, but I know I didn't show you last time my April crossed out days are days that I did not stitch for one reason or another. like I was filming or I was prepping or I had a visitor stitch day. Um but also I do put in here wh what's that one? Start. That was a start. This right here was a finish. So um I've got that on there. So it was kind of fun to see progress. I know we all enjoy sharing our um our book books of days. So what what was this new start and already a finish something small and I rarely work on small things. So this was a pleasure to see something. I know some of you guys regularly add small things into your rotations just so you can see some finishes.
Um, I don't remember. It hasn't been all that long ago that I shared this chart with you that I had recently received as well as Oh, well, I won't show you the other one yet. This one I got from 123 stitch. And I got it because at the end of May, I'm going down to the attic in Phoenix for a retreat on Bristols and Quakers. And so I had this little chart with Quakers and I thought, you just gonna do it. I'm just going to get my head. Not I'm stitching Quakers already, but I just wanted to see a stitch and a a start and a finish on something. So I started one of those on the first Zoom that I did with Sarah. Sarah, I put in my first stitches and here it is finished already.
This is, let me get that close. I hope you can see it.
This was stitched on 40count linen in the color smoky quartz and it's stitched with a Gloriana silk in the color ironwood.
If you can see that. Um, this is a color I got uh with a bunch of other threads that were uh the call for threads for Hannah Whitaker. And I've changed this color in that chart, but I thought it's a beautiful, beautiful brown, variegated brown going from light to dark. And I wanted to use it. And so that's what I used for this. I stitched on it almost every night when I got home from work. I think it took me about four four or five evenings. I altered it just a little bit. Well, I had to change it to put the date in here. And then this um motif was not part of the chart.
What was in that chart? I don't remember what was there. Let me see. I think a bird maybe at a weird angle. Can't see it real close. Anyway, whatever it was in that along that edge, I just decided to change it and found that motif I think in uh the other berry actually. So, I just put that in there. But otherwise, it's called for motifs. So, that is the Quaker berry. and I look forward to uh putting that together. I have never made one of these berries before. Now, my friend Renee, who is on Floss Tube, she is Prairie Stitcher 515, she's made a lot of these berries and she's shown them on her Floss Tube. She also has a great Instagram page, so if you guys don't know Renee or don't follow her yet, I would definitely recommend it. She said we can get on uh FaceTime some night and she would be happy to share with me any tips and tricks that she has for putting the berries together. So, I will be pleased to know that.
Put that linen inside the bag. I don't want it to get wrinkled. I haven't really ironed it yet, but I don't want it to get wrinkled.
Now, I had also asked uh borrowed the next one. I'm going to show you this one. So, since I'm going to a Quaker and a Bristol retreat, I thought I'm going to do a Bristol, too. So, I borrowed this one from Renee.
She has quite a few of these berry charts. And um I've actually never stitched a Bristol sampler before. So, I just thought I wanted to get my head into some Bristol motifs. I mean, who of us who are sampler lovers doesn't know what at least a Bristol sampler looks like?
They're almost always red, full of borders, little motifs, corner um decorative corner elements and that kind of thing.
So, I just wanted to stitch a Bristol.
And I started that one on the at the same time that I did Sarah's second zoom. And there, that one is finished.
So, this one is also on 40count linen.
This one was a little fat ape piece of linen that I got from my friend Marie at Swan Bay Samplers and it's the color Peimberly.
It has a very slight peachy cast to it in real life. Um it's ivory peach. And then I for this one I used an NPI red that I had a few strands of um 504. It was a really good red I think for bristols.
And this is these both are one floss thread over two linen threads.
So I will tell you these berries generally the recommended size of linen is 36 count. This one is 37. I do have a couple of pieces of 36c count linen, but I'm so used to stitching on 40 count and 46, sometimes 56 that 36 I'm sorry, it just looked it looked too big. Um, and I wasn't comfortable with it. Plus, that is a count of linen where depending on your preference of how you like your stitches to look, you either have to use um two threads or you may use one. I'm comfortable, more comfortable using one floss thread. But I also like my stitches to look plump.
And when I was stitching with one strand of the silk on 36 count, I wasn't pleased. I wasn't happy with the way my stitches looked. So I just thought, it doesn't matter, Jackie, what count you stitch on. What matters is that you're happy with what you're doing. So I just pulled out some 40 count. I've got plenty in my stash and switched to 40 count and was so much happier and using silk on both of these. The stitches are just sh so shiny and beautiful that I was very pleased with the result that I got on both of these. So, I'm looking forward to putting those together and uh seeing them in my bowl of goodies.
So, those were my surprise starts and finishes.
Let's see. What did I work on next?
I've got a things on a chair right over here next to me. You can sort of see this little bit of turquoise um uh turquoise blue uh chair here. I worked next on a patriotic stitch. Now, what I'm going to show you is not a huge amount of progress. Progress is progress though, right? But the reason I do want to show you this is because in the past, up until a couple of weeks ago, I did not have a dedicated project bag for my patriotic stitch, but I do now.
Look, this was a gift to me at my stitch with me day from my friend Lennis, who comes over from Topeka to join us to stitch. She made this for me. It's really nice fabric. Um, looking at the White House. I'm not sure what other monuments the Lincoln Memorial I believe is on here, but anyway, nice nice uh patriotic fabric.
And she put this fob on here. But also, I have this beautiful stitched fob on here. That was a gift from Renee. She brought that to me on stitch day too and gave that to me. So anyway, thank you ladies for now giving me a patriotic bag to house a patriotic chart that I'm working on. If you've been here before, you've seen it before. This is America 250 from Plum Street Samplers.
Now, this is just a photocopy. So, because I pull it out of the bag so often, it gets banged up. So, it's just a color photocopy.
And this one, I'm using some of the called for flosses and some of my own additions. Called for flosses were a mixture of overdyes and DMC's. And then I've added in a few um of got a couple couple of color and cotton here as well as weeks classic color works and gentle arts. I do have an NPI white that I'm using for some of the white. So that's my mixture of floss. They're getting a little bit tangled up from being in and out of that bag so frequently. a beautiful kind of more primitive I would say red, white, and blue with some olivey greens and uh browns in there.
So, here's my America 250.
So, it does not look a huge amount of difference since you last saw it, but where I've been working is in the stripes on the flag. So, I have more stripes on my flag than the last time you saw that. This I've done uh in a couple of other Zoom calls that I've done. I get together weekly with some ladies.
Uh used to be on Friday nights. We had just had to switch it because of a scheduling conflict of one. But this is good zoom stitching because those stripes are made up of two different reds and two different whites. And it's already, you know, it's three stitches wide, three stitches high each of those sections in order to get that sort of waving look to the flag.
So, it's easy stitching to do on a Zoom call.
This one is being stitched on 40count linen with one floss thread over two linen threads.
And the color on this one is avagado, which is one of my favorite colors of linen actually. And that's by fiber on a whim also.
So, America 250. I hope some of you are I think some of you are receiving your charts that you've been waiting for so patiently from the attic. Um like I said, mine is borrowed, but I have a sister who lives in Phoenix and uh she's getting one for me from the store. She has one set aside or hopefully she does.
She hasn't told me she has it, but I know she uh left word there that she wanted one. Uh, so hopefully I'll actually get my own copy finally and I can return my borrowed copy to the friend who was at the summer school last year and where they got this chart. So really pleased to have a good bag to put this in. Making a little bit of progress. Now I'm not in any particular hurry to finish this. I don't have a Fourth of July finish date in mind. I have plenty of things that I'm stitching on and that I'm enjoying stitching on that I don't um feel a a great need to have this done by that date. It's an important date to be sure to commemorate the official sort of birthday of our nation, but this whole year is in uh kind of an anniversary for the birth of our nation. So, I hope I get it done this year. Maybe I'll have to make uh it a priority if it's still not any much further along than that by the end of the year. But for now, I'm just stitching on it when I feel like stitching on it. And this is actually my first time stitching a Plum Street design. Everybody who stitches them in the past, I know Pette, the designer, tends to put large houses and a lot of motifs in her designs. And I always hear people say, "Wow, that house, Pette, it's beautiful, but that's a lot of stitches." as well. I'm now in that flag and then Independence Hall is going to be the body of Independence Hall is going to be coming into what I'll be stitching and so I know I'll be at that a while. It's going to be some full coverage area stitching. So, it will be something probably that will be good for Zoom calls, continue to be good for Zoom calls if I can get the framework of the Independence Hall in and then just fill in the red. They're not I don't think there are individual bricks in this, are there? No, there are not individual bricks uh like there are in some of uh Pette's houses, but there's still going to be a lot of that brick red color to stitch. So, that'll be a good one for Zoom calls and to just, you know, some night when I come home from work after I'm tired and I don't want to think, I don't want to have to count a lot. Um, my brain needs a rest and just needs to stitch. It'll be a good one to work on. So, America 250.
After that, I and I went back and forth a couple of times between that and this one I'm going to show you next. I did a chart that I'm doing. This is kind of a seasonal chart, if you will.
In 2025, at the end of 2024 and 2025, I was stitching a Barbara Anna piece that was called the Four Seasons, and I was doing it with Sarah of um Sil Sarah, the channel. It was a very something that we did at the beginning started the sections at the beginning of each of the seasons and I wanted to continue that uh doing that this year. So I selected a pattern that came out in just CrossStitch magazine.
It was released in four different parts.
It's called Nature's Journey. And I started on the first day of spring with this section right here. And this was released in the spring 2025 issue of Just CrossStitch. You can see so many beautiful finishes of this on Instagram and I know a few people here on Floss Tube have uh started and finished it, but I've had it I did have it in my stash all last year.
But again, I was working on other things. It wasn't the right time to start until the beginning of spring this year. And I had one of you guys who watches me comment on my last video because I've also had somebody reach out and say, "Was that ever released as a standalone complete chart?" I didn't think it was, but one of you guys have corrected me and it is. I'm pleased to say it is available as a standalone chart. It's a digital download, however, but it's available from a website called Annie's Attic, and I will put a link to that in the description block box below this video. So, digital downloads, you know, you don't have to use them on a device.
You can print them out. So, I was pleased to hear that. I did go check and saw it there. I wanted to make sure I wasn't leading you to a place that was just um that it truly wasn't there, but it is. And it's just a little over $14 US if you want to get that. So, wonderful to know that that complete chart is available so you don't have to find back issues. However, Annie's Attic, I think, is where I've gotten back issues of just crossstitch in the past. So if you're looking for something, you can find it there. So I I will show you. First of all, let me get the beautiful flosses out.
This is charted in all DMC.
I'm a bobinator, so I have to have several rings in order to fit all of these colors on. This is all four seasons here, but most of the ones I'm working with right now are on one ring.
And I'm working on the called for fabric which is from be stitch me. It's called into the veil. But I'm not working on the called for count. So first of all, let's show you now my progress. Here it is. Beautiful, beautiful spring colors on this pale green fabric.
Now, since I saw you last, I have put in um these all of this like from here over and these elements from here down. I didn't have any of that done last time I saw you and I was really looking forward to getting another color in there besides just pink and more pink and bright lime green and brown. So adding a different shade of brown, the blues in.
And I love these little mushrooms that are in there. Just a nice soft browns added in.
So that's my nature's journey. This I said was not on the called for size. I'm working on 46 count linen here. It's my preferred actual count of linen to work on. 40 or 46.
Um, one of the things that's interesting that I've noticed now that I'm working on 46 a lot. I don't think I noticed it as much on 40 count. I'm sure it's true, but the way this linen feels is different than some other dyers. This is my first time working with a Be Stitch Me linen, and I'm not saying anything to complain. There's just something about it. And maybe it's because it's such a light color. It the feel of the linen feels a little more delicate. That might seem weird, but it just has a delicacy to it. And it's not saturated with deeper colors. That might be some of it because it it is a lighter color, but it just has a different feeling to it. And I don't know if maybe you can tell me if those of you who might know more about linen, the Ziggart base uh linen than others. Um this is Ziggart. has the telltale orange stitching on the salvage edge. But I don't know if there's different grades of linen that people start with or everybody uses the same and then it's the dye and finish setting finishing process of the linen that changes the hand of it. But this linen just feels different than any other linens that I've worked with before. So, I don't know the reason for that. It's just something that I've observed as I'm stitching with it. And when I put it in a hoop, I like to work with a very um stretched, tight, taut, like drum tight linen. It opens the holes, but it's just my preferred way that I stitch. It's just a difference that I notice about it. Again, I'm it's not a complaint, nothing wrong with it, just something I'm observing. And I have been stitching this second go round just since 2023. So I'm just noticing some of these things as I'm trying different dyers, different linens made by different dyers and working with different flosses, the overdyes and the silks. I'm learning what my preferences are just like you do. if you try new uh materials or new to you materials. So just an observation and I will say that this is in a beautiful project bag made for me by a viewer Sarah who is from New Zealand.
And I love these um birds, the fan tails.
My last couple of videos, I haven't been sure about where those were from, and I couldn't remember where Sarah was from, whether it was Australia or New Zealand.
I went back and looked at some correspondence because I want to get it right. Sarah's from New Zealand. Those gray fan tales, New Zealand. So, anyway, beautiful, beautiful colors. I'm having fun working on nature's journey. And it's colors that I I can look out the window and see all the beautiful greens.
I can't see pink flowers outside a second story window, but when I take Archie for a walk, I'm certainly seeing those colors as we are outside. So, I hope it's beautiful where you are. I know if you're in the southern hemisphere, you're into uh early parts of autumn now, so your colors are changing, but we're still having a lot of beautiful spring flowers. The peianies are in full bloom right now, lillocks, and we're into that season, and you can just smell them in the air.
My favorite flowers at this time of year, peies, lilacs, and lily of the valley. I have none of them any longer because I live in an apartment, but I have had them and they're just some of my favorites. So, this is the restart, new start, restart of a project bag by patchwork and paw print. She makes a British bag maker.
Beautiful bags. And she always has this wooden button on here. Nice heavyweight zippers on her bags. This is a Kathy, one of those Kathy Holden prints that looks like uh photographs of I believe it actually is vintage stitching that Kathy found at flea markets and uh photographed to make the pattern. So, let me get it over here.
So, it's a restart.
First of all, what's the chart? It's called the Green Bean Sampler by Shakespeare's Peddler.
This one right here. Because down there at the bottom, there's a basket full of green beans.
And it has Psalm 23 on it. The Lord P or part of Psalm 23 on there. I'm doing this one in honor of both my mom and my grandma for a couple of reasons. The green beans always were in the garden.
And that was uh grandma's favorite verse.
Anyway, green bean sampler. I had shown you. I had started it uh right here.
This is where I had gotten to. This is a linen called Dusk, I believe, from Roxy Flossco. I had always seen envisioned this sampler on a teal fabric. And this is as close as I could get to teal. I was happy with it until this fabric arrived in my mailbox from Color and Cotton. This was part of a special um die that they did, limited edition uh die lot that they did, and they called this one King Fisher. And when I saw this, I thought, but that's the color that I always intended for the green beans to be on. And so I did a restart.
And so, like I said, this is where I started.
Let me show you. I just was able to work on it a couple of nights since I've seen you last. So, here's my restart, and I'm really happy with how this is looking. So, I don't have any of the real colorful stuff in here yet, as you can see. Just an early start here. And I've already had to make a couple of tweaks to some of the colors, which I'm not uh mad about or anything.
I don't have a problem changing colors.
In fact, I've changed some of them in order to even do the the first version that I showed you.
Get my flosses out here.
Here's what I've got.
And this is 40 count linen. I restarted it just on May 3rd, so it hasn't been that long. combination of overdyed floss and DMC's.
I believe the conversion on this or the called for colors on this is either overdyed or DMC, but when I'm pulling threads for a sampler, I will pull the overdides if they if I have them, and I have a pretty good selection of most. I also have a pretty uh comprehensive collection of DMC. I don't think I have a master set yet, but I've got many of them. And then I kind of compare and contrast.
What do I like about the overdyes? What do I like about the DMC's?
Do the floss toss. How do they look on my linen? And then go from there, whether or not I need to make changes.
And on this one, I did have to and some of them. Plus, also here up here, there's some flowers. They're a little hard to see, but they're light blue. I have changed those to be lavender. The shape of those flowers, while not being violets, they have kind of a violety quality to them to my eye. And I liked the um lavender color that I pulled, which is this French lilac from Gentle Art. I liked that more than the called for blue, which I can't remember what it was.
Old money maybe. So, it was kind of a blue green, but in its place, I am going to use a blue in it. in its place. I'm going to use this frosted spruce. Pretty much what I'm doing is just swapping where the purple was. I'm putting blue and where the blue was, I'm switching to purple. So, both colors will still be in there. Keeping the J same general tone that was called for on this and on a teal rather than a deep dark green. That was the called for linen was colonial green from is that xjude designs? I think I did have a piece but what I had was nearly black and it it just wasn't what I was looking for. So teal was almost always it for me for this.
Well I saw the chart I saw teal. So anyway green bean sampler. Glad to have that going. It's a lot of counting and I'm going to tell you what you know I was talking about the way that that be stitch me linen felt and it's very different from this color and cotton linen. This is 40 count, but it's very tightly woven.
And again, I don't know if that's because of the dye process or again, it's a ziggart linen, the orange is there, but this also being such a deep color, I'm sure there's a lot of dye in the fibers, so that probably has an effect on the way this feels in your hand as well. But just something I was noticing uh this time around as I've been working on the projects that I have, the tactile nature of working with fabric and fiber is something that I a part of the process of stitching that I enjoy. So, when I'm finding these differences and they stand out to me, I'm just trying to figure out, well, what is the difference? What's causing that difference? What might it be?
Certainly, there's nothing I can do about it. It's just something I notice and what's going on. I have I'm a very curious person if you haven't figured that out before. Um, my favorite question when I was a kid was why? Why?
My mom got tired of that. Um, but I still to this day I think, well, why is that? Why is that? And if I can find out, I will. So, that is my restart on the green bean sampler by Shakespeare's Peddler. 40 count. Like I said, one floss thread over linen threads.
Now, moving on. I have one more sampler to show you that I worked on. This is a Quaker sampler that I uh have shown you many of you working on it and this is a large Quaker sampler. So you'll be seeing it kind of a lot but this is in the past I have worked on a monochromatic Quaker sampler the Beatatrix Potter Quaker which is hanging up in that room behind me. You can just see it a little bit there.
And this sampler has some color to it which will be nice. However, right now the area I'm working on monochromatic.
But this is being held in a beautiful bag made for me by Barry of Stitch Folk.
Most of you know who she is.
And this is a chart called Hannah Whitaker 1821.
by Crossstitch Antiques. I know a lot of you have this one. Some of you are stitching with me. Some of you have been stitching her and are way farther along than I am on this.
But when I saw this one, I saw Kathleen show it on a Zoom call with the Across the Pond Facebook uh Zoom stitch group. She showed the antique and immediately I was drawn to it. If you have seen any of my past videos, you know that when I have a visceral reaction to something, I am all in on it. And that's what happened when I saw this. I had a visceral reaction to it. What is that? I've got to stitch that. When can I get my hands on it? And I've got to do it. So, I pestered Kathleen uh she got it released and I she mailed me a copy of it. I had it at uh na national needle market weekend. I had it in my hands right at the end of that weekend.
So, I'm very pleased to have a start on this. I do have the called for flosses, but I'm making my own conversion. So, that's what I'm showing you. My conversion is not complete, however. And my conversion has some of the called for overdyed silks.
as many of them. But once again, I pulled the called for DMC's and um kind of making some changes to the colors that were called for. Most of the ones Kathleen called for were Gloriana's with the exception of I think a bell swath.
And I am adding in several thread gatherer silks.
One of the main ones I'm using is a dinky dyes.
And without further ado, let me show you my stitching.
Let me I had it folded inside out. Turn it around for you so you can see the stitching.
Here is what I have done on Hannah Whitaker so far. Let me pull it back so you can see all of it.
So, right now I have gotten all the way across the top. And now both edges are in. So, we can see how far it goes.
And let me then get it up close so you can see the beautiful stitches.
Now, what I've put in since I last saw you where I finished this motif over here, and then I did that whole motif there, that kind of one with the that's a half circle. And then I got in the beginning of the next one. That's the left side there.
This I'm doing on 46count linen. And this is also a Roxy Flossco linen called dirty porcelain.
And I had it in my stash and I felt like it was a good representation of the antique. It is not the called for. The called for was antique lace by Saraphim which I had some of. Uh was much more gray. just not my preference. This one suited me better. I have realized that um I'm not a person who enjoys stitching on a lot of gray. Now, I showed you something a Quaker stitch on sort of gray linen already. That one has some green cast to it. Uh, so that kind of changes its view to me, but I'm just not a lover of gray. And also, the color of your linen is going to be affected by the colors around you in in your home in your the room you're stitching in and where you're going to be hanging your sampler. So, in my apartment with all of this brown, now I didn't choose this brown. I'm happy with this brown color on my walls, though. I love it. But it really affects how uh linen looks. And so warmer colors of linen really look better in my apartment than colder gray tone um linens. And so when I stitch, even if I'm stitching on a colored linen, like get a peachy, it's going to lean more warm than uh cool.
the brown colors that I choose are going to lean more warm than cooler tones. So, it's just what I have come to uh realize works better here. It's also just kind of my own personal preference. I tend towards warmer colors. Now, here I'm wearing blue, but um it's just the tones that I tend to choose are going to be slightly warmer.
So, anyway, Hannah Whitaker I wanted to get all the way across the top because this is a large chart.
Where did I put her? Here she is. And the stitch count is 297 stitches wide by 455 high. It will fit on a fat quarter of 46 count.
So, I wanted to make sure I got all the way across. So I knew what my margins were going to look like. I started in the center of this one so that I could work out to the sides rather than start generally a top left starter.
Uh but I started in the center of this one and worked my way to the edges.
So, that is where I am on Hannah Whitaker. And I'm really enjoying seeing the progress on those that I'm seeing on Instagram. And there are quite a few people on uh Floss Tube who are talking about this. I know um who was it? Brenda and Laura's latest video.
Brenda just got this. She was recently at the attic and she got it. She's waiting on her floss. Um, and others are doing it, too. And I know in my last video when I was talking about Hannah Whitaker, I mentioned that I had been watching a couple of floss tubes who were really focusing on Quakers. I talked about Jacob from Modern Folk Embroidery. I never said who the second one was. Duh. Sorry about that. But it's Susan Stanley. And I hope you're watching Susan Stanley's channel. First of all, it's called Susan Stanley Stitch in Time, but she is focusing uh on this whole year on a American Quaker girl and her mother. Esther is the girl and her mother is Judith. And Susan just released a little kind of standup figure of a Quaker dressed woman that is Judith. And Susan likes to create fictional stories but based on history.
This one in fact is based on a real person, a real family and their experience in a certain time period in a certain area of the country. She has done a girl in St. Louis, I believe it was.
Susan likes to work in the 1800s and she also likes to talk about what some of the needle work of the time would be besides just cross stitching, quilting.
Susan's an amazing quilter. So, she talks about quilting and English paper piecing and what would be in a person's stitching basket, sewing basket at the time, what kinds of things they would be exposed to, where would they purchase their materials, how would they acquire their materials if they lived out in the country, for instance. So right now Susan is focusing on this young girl named Esther who is an American Quaker from the state of Ohio. So I think most of us are familiar with British Quakers, particularly the Aworth School in Yorkshire, England, but I'm really interesting in following along with what Susan is doing and learning more about American Quakers. Quakers were a considered like a fringe religious group, if you will, at a time where a if you weren't part of the Church of England, you were persecuted for your religious beliefs. So, the Quakers were very persecuted for their beliefs. And a lot of them came to America, Canada, um, and other countries, but some of them toughed it out and stayed in England and worked through some of those differences. And one of the most fa famous schools obviously is the Aworth School. A very familiar style of Quaker sampler was primarily developed there and that is those geometric medallions of which we see a lot of yet those same motifs traveled to America. Did Aworth people bring them? No.
There are people who are studying how did these medallions travel? How did these motifs travel? Where did they come from? Who developed them? It's unknown.
And I know Jacob from Modern Folk Embroidery is researching this as well as some other people. Uh they talk about Quaker samplers a lot in the British Sampler Guild meetings that are taking place.
Anyway, fascinating, fascinating stitching and learning about Quaker samplers. Now, I'm taking that a step further as I want to do when I'm interested in a sampler, when something about it captures my attention and imagination.
And as I said, this one did. There's something about this that I needed to know more deeply about. Now, Kathleen is a great researcher trying to find out who the original stitcher of a sampler is, as are many antique sampler reproductionists these days. We're all familiar with Nicola Parkman's Hands Across the Sea samplers and the amount of historical research she does, as do many, many others. But in this case, Hannah Whitaker and the town of Thorne is referenced here and the year 1821.
Kathleen was not able to definitively locate who Hannah was. She had a couple of ideas, but no real way to say, "Yep, that's her."
One of the main Hannah's that Kathleen came up with was Hannah Whitaker, who was married to Robert Whitaker, who was in this time period the superintendent of the Aworth School. Now, Kathleen could not locate Hannah as having been a student at Aworth. So, it was kind of a question of why was she why was Hannah Whitaker stitching this very obviously Aworth inspired sampler if if not for, you know, the fact that because, you know, she was married to Robert So, Kathleen's research just got us to uh Hannah Dumbleton was Robert's wife's maiden name. They were married um in 1812 and as I said, she was the wife of the superintendent.
So, I have been doing some digging.
This is now my folder on Hannah Whitaker.
And I believe that that is who stitched this sampler. I'm going to go on a limb and say that's who stitched this sampler. I do not know it yet, but I'm in hot pursuit of the evidence that we could say with certainty. Yes.
Um, since I saw you last, one of y'all reached out to me and said, "Hey, I'm an amateur genealogologist.
I've been doing it for 30 years. I'd like to help you.
Sarah from Wisconsin. You're my angel.
Thank you."
I have Sarah from Wisconsin has been doing so much research and providing me with links and books and has found some things for me which I will share. I have also been in touch with and am getting information from a woman named Celia who right now is the archivist for the Aqua School.
We think we have found Hannah. And maybe Hannah Whitaker did not go to or was not in the student roles of Aqua School, but Hannah Dumbleton was.
That information was given to me by Celia, the archivist. And when I got that, I um was talking to my friend Ray Niles.
I said, "It's like looking for a needle in a hay stack." And not only did we find the needle, but we found a gold needle.
I was so so excited when I got that information from Celia. So, let me read you what she tells me just briefly. This is a printed out email from her. Um, I have managed because I was giving her when I reached out to her the first time to introduce myself and what I was looking for. I gave her some citations for information that I already had and she said, "I've already found a good deal about Hannah Dum Hannah Dumbleton already, but she's going to supplement what I already know." Incidentally, our records use two spellings of her surname. Dumbleton, spelled D U M B L E T O N and Dumbleden with a D O N instead of the T. But they are the same person.
In their records, they are the same person.
Hannah was a pupil at Aworth from the 26th of November 1783 until the 2nd of December 1784.
She was the daughter of John and Esther from Dudley in the Midlands. Now, I had found that we'd found birth records and knew actually no, at that time I did not have the birth record. I do now. But from her marriage uh announcement with Robert, we knew she her parents were John and Esther Dumbleton from a town of Dudley that was in the Midlands.
Hannah was born on the 12th of June in 1772.
Now, Kathleen had found that information. Hannah's sister Esther, born on the 31st of October 1775, was also a pupil at Aworth from the 4th of August 1786 until the 6th of September of 1788.
So Hannah was a student for one year, Esther 42.
Hannah became a nurse at the school in 1797 until 1799 when she became the housekeeper.
Housekeeper with a capital H.
She married Robert Whitaker in 1812 and continued her duties as housekeeper until 1833 when unfortunately she passed away.
Esther also worked as the school nurse from 1800 to 1801.
So she may have taken over from her sister Hannah because uh they married in or Hannah was elevated to the position of housekeeper in 1799. Then Esther became the nurse in 1800. So very close uh date proximity there. So there was another school nurse named Mary Dumbleden with a D from 1808 to 28 but she they have not been able to establish if they that person was related to Hannah and Esther.
She was much older than the two sisters and she died in service in 1828 at the age of 59 and there was a fever epidemic that hit the school in 1828 and that's what caused the death of that Mary Dumbleton. Now not to be confused with another Mary Dumbleton who Dumbledin Dumbleton um there was a Mary Whitaker who was the daughter of Robert and Hannah. They had a daughter named Mary.
So, I have not learned anything yet other than the birth date of Mary. So, that's another rabbit hole I could go down. I'm really curious to learn uh what happened to her. So, anyway, Celia, the archivist emailed me also because of course I have questions now.
I have a lot of questions. What are the duties of the housekeeper? My only experience of housekeeper is from watching, you know, Downtown Abbey, Mrs. Hughes, the housekeeper. Is it that type of a position? Was she, you know, was it a position where she kind of oversaw other people who worked in the house?
Was she just the maid dusting around?
You know, what is a housekeeper at Aworth School?
So Celia sent me the handwritten job description of the housekeeper as well as the nurse since Hannah had both roles.
And I transcribed that and yeah, it was sort of like Mrs. Hughes in Downtown Abbey, not working for uh a wellto-do family, but taking care of a very large household with all of those students and making sure that they had everything that they needed for the school to run efficiently on a day-to-day basis. the food, the um linens, everything they needed in the kitchen and for each of the rooms and that the kids had what they needed, that everybody had what they needed for the school to run. That was her job. It was important. And that's what Celia told me. That was a very important position in the school.
So for her to be promoted to that obviously was a uh very well regarded person.
So I thought I had in my notes here those here it is. So this was I'll just read you a couple of things. the housekeeper. Um, the job description was first that she be mistress of the female students and superintend the household affairs until it may be thought proper to separate the offices of mistress and housekeeper, which apparently they were the same for a while and then weren't.
She took care of the furniture, the household linen, the stores, and deliver uh the a list of things that they needed to order to the superintendent. So, she was regularly talking with going to meetings with conversing with the superintendent, Robert, before she ever married him. So they had a close relationship because they were both in charge of making sure that school worked well.
Then you know she had care of the provisions needing a list for market ordering the market. She had to go to the take care of ordering you know the meats and everything they needed. Rise early in the morning see that the servants fulfill their daily duties.
all those things.
And I thought this was funny that she be particularly careful that no waste or plunder be committed in her department and that the strictest economy be observed by every part of the family under her care.
So, one of the other very important things that Hannah did that I've come to learn that she did as the housekeeper was that she had her own uh room, very nice room that is now kind of a place, Celia told me, where the teachers gather. Um, but that was one time the housekeepers room and Hannah received the new students who were coming in who made sure that they were warm, that her fire was constantly going, brought them in, clothed them, made sure that they had dry clothing, made sure that they had a good meal if they were just coming in after having traveled a long way.
Many of the students at Aworth were being sent there to stay there. Some of them were orphans. Some of them just came for school during the day. More local children. But it was Hannah's job to receive these children in and make sure that they were well cared for and sought to and u taken to their rooms.
As the nurse, she would have attended to them when they were sick that they had everything they needed as far as medicine or porridge. you know, whatever they needed. Sometimes she would have to sleep in the nursery and sit up with them as occasions required and would also have to show the house to anyone who was visiting. So, as Celia said, it was a very important position that she had. And then when she married Robert, she was elevated to the wife of the headmaster, the superintendent. that was a job, one in the same thing. Um, she was elevated to that position. They were like, uh, what Celia told me was like the parents for those children who needed that kind of guidance and care.
Um, and as well she kept her duties as housekeeper, even being married to Robert. So she was a very busy woman and helped take care of that as well as Robert did. everything that I have read about him which I've got more on him both of them were wellresected uh people and in a time when Robert took over as superintendent apparently some things needed to be changed um he had a lot of things that he had to like figure out do better and he took took on a task and during the time that he was the superintendent was a time of of prosperity as far as Aworth school was concerned. So the two of them are really important to the history of the Aworth school. So so exciting to read that. Now, as I said, I don't have evidence yet. Celia is going to be going through some other records that they have. She has I've given her my list of all of the initials that are stitched in the sampler to see if we can correlate them to maybe some teachers who were employed at the time that Hannah would have been there during the 1820s because this sampler is dated 1821. So you know um during or around that time maybe there are initials there that are relatives. Certainly RW is in that sampler. Um there is an MW in the sampler. I think in fact there might be two of them as well as other initials.
So we're trying to figure out who some of those might be. I think if we can put that together, we can more clearly say it's probably her. The thing that I still don't have a good theory on is the thorn connection. Working on that.
But I want to tell you um I've been last time I talked to you I'd had the will of Robert Whitaker and I was hoping to get that trans transcribed looking to do that. Now, the Sarah that I mentioned who reached out to me has done that for me and she was able to find on ancestry.com uh handwritten copy of the will, the full will because what I had access to turns out it wasn't the complete will.
Sarah found that and on the website for those of you who like genealogy I believe it's my heritage uh and family search also I believe this was my heritage I don't have it in my notes right next to me but has a new AI function where you can put have the AI software review documents and transcribe them.
And so I have a literal transcription of Robert's will now.
Plus, I also have what that AI program will do. And I have my own issues with AI, but I think this is a a great use for AI. What it did besides, excuse me, the literal transcription of the will was kind of analyze it, putting it in historical context, pulling out uh names, which is what I was looking for.
Who's named in here? Can I cross reference that them with any of the initials on that sampler?
Who's Who are these people? What is their relation to Robert? We do see his daughter Mary mentioned in this will a couple of times. some other people who one of whom uh with the last name of Bins I think Thomas Bins was also now I've come to learn at the school in some capacity and some other people in this will of course Hannah is not mentioned because she passed away in 1833 and Robert lived a longer life he passed passed away in 1848.
Now in the will he mentions also Esther Lamb I believe and references her as being his sister-in-law that was yes Esther Lamb sister-in-law then he was helping take she was a widow at the time and he had bequeathed some money to continue to take care of Hannah's sister.
So, just interesting reading. I've got a lot more I could tell you, but I don't need to go on and on and on. But the one of the most exciting things came to me in an email again from Sarah today. She sent me a link to a book called Superintendent, Teachers, and Principal Officers of Aqua School.
And one of the first things you see when you open the PDF of that book is this gentleman.
This is Robert Whitaker.
I'm tearing up now as I'm showing this to you, as I did when I opened that and saw him for the first time because I've been reading about these people.
And you're reading about somebody, you know, in the past, you have an idea of who they are. Are you reading about how much they meant to the institution of Aqua School? I mean, his obituary is lengthy and full of accolades and how many people he affected.
Um, and you kind of have an idea of maybe who they are, but they're ephemeral.
They're they're not real.
And it was a time prephotography.
So when I got to see that, he just became real.
And I would love it if we could make Hannah real. I don't know that we will.
He was such a an important person to Aworth that there was this etching done and this was referenced in the book as being loaned to the person who wrote this book and it was Joseph Spence Hudgson published in 1895. It was loaned by Mary Whitaker for the publication of the book.
So, there was just a little um a paragraph in this book about Robert and other superintendent and teachers. I haven't been through it yet. I might be able to locate on my own some teachers initials that go with that sampler. I worked this morning so I couldn't really dig into it. Now I'm here talking to you guys. I can't dig into it yet. But I want to read to you Robert Whitaker, superintendent.
In 1809 his salary was 105b.
In 1830 it was 150. In 1829 it went up to 200 pounds. He entered service in 1796 at Aworth as a bookkeeper and assistant teacher in the school and lived outside of the school at that time. In 1805 on taking the office of superintendent he came with his wife Mary. He was married before to Mary um he came with his wife to reside in the school. Upon his second marriage in 1812 to Hannah Dumbleden, the committee awarded 100 guineies to himself and wife.
In parenthes or in quotation marks, he was remarkable for his devotion to the duties of his post and for the admirable spirit which he infused into his subordinates and the harmony which his influence produced in all sections of the officers and family.
In 1832, Hannah Whitaker died of the chalera when at Welshpool in Wales. And after this, Robert Whitaker never recovered his mental or bodily vigor.
He retired into private life in 1834 and died in the 8th month 1848, aged 82 years. At the general meeting of 1838, a handsome chronometer clock in a mahogany case was presented to him as a tribute of esteem, gratitude, and affection by 340 young men who were educated at Aworth during his superintendency.
I think anybody who stitches a Quaker that has been attributed to Aworth starts to feel a a connection to that institution.
I know some people who have visited there.
I want to I probably will after all this. But this has already been such an interesting journey to go on. Here I go getting emotional. I haven't done that in a while. So, which is really why I love stitching samplers because a person did this.
Hannah is in not my stitches, but Hannah is in here.
And for me, when I stitch a sampler, I start to connect with that person, to feel that person, and it makes me want to know who they were, what was their life like, what went on. And in this case, Aqua School, we can know more about Hannah Dumbleden was a student there. So Kathleen speculated, you know, if she wasn't a student there, Hannah Whitaker, she Kathleen hadn't found that, I don't think, or I think she'd have referenced it. Kathleen was wondering why was this in an awkward style if she wasn't there or only Robert's wife. Well, she was a student there, so she would have learned needle work there. She was an accomplished needle worker. Celia the archavist told me she would have been in charge of you know mending repairing linens taking care of the linens. So she would have been working with in needle work all the time. Um uh Celia is going to try and find out who the needle work mistress the teacher was. Um anyway it's just an interesting journey.
I love sharing this with you. I'm so glad many of you like to listen to me talk about this. Um, it's just a lot of fun for me and it certainly enriches the experience of working on a sampler for me and I hope it does for you also. And if you're stitching her and are now hearing this, I hope it will enrich the experience for you. So, as I said, the the matter of uh connecting her to Thorne is yet to be figured out. And I was thinking about this like if we see Thor, the name, it's a town um a little over 20 miles from Aworth. Um I think we assume that the person who stitched it lived there.
What if she didn't? What if it was just a place that meant something to her?
Kathleen's research uh found that Robert's father had some land there. My friend Sarah in Wisconsin is looking into uh trying to find out if there was a dwelling there. Also, maybe Hannah and Robert went there if they ever had any free time. I had the Googles figure out how long would it take to get from Aworth to Thorne with horses and u like with a horse and carriage you could Google estimated how fast does a horse trot you know and how long would it take to cover that amount of mileage and it between three and four hours. So it was a place that yeah you could go um and get there in half a day. Maybe they had time off sometimes from school.
Maybe they went to Thorne. Maybe they loved Thorne and there was something about it that Hannah felt connected to.
Maybe that's why she put the name Thor on that sampler. Certainly they, you know, had a a happy and loving marriage.
From everything I've read, they probably planned what they were going to do when they were no longer so involved with the school, retired even. Maybe they wanted to live in Thor.
And maybe that's why she put it there. I don't know. But I know that at times like I was thinking about my Beatrix Potter Quaker right there.
It doesn't have a town on it. I might have, you know, considered putting uh the name of West in there. There wasn't a place for it necessarily. But actually, I was thinking I started that sampler when I was with the friends whose initials are in that. I started that in a special vacation weekend place that they owned that I spent a lot of time at in a little town named Arow Rock, Missouri. I could have easily have put Arow Rock on there. Somebody seeing that sampler after I'm gone would then probably assume that I was from Arow Rock. They would never find me there. No records of me there. But making the assumption that I was from there just simply because I stitched it into the sampler. So I just started thinking maybe Hannah never got to live there, but she loved it.
I don't know. We'll see. yet to be revealed, if at all. But I'm having fun looking up who Hannah might have been and sharing all of that with you. So, I hope I hope that has been interesting for you. Certainly certainly has been for me. And again, I want to say thank you to uh Sarah who has been doing so much work for me. And I've been combing the thing, combing through the books and things that she's been sending me, looking for the entries that correlate to Robert or Hannah or anything that I can find that references them. But Sarah has been doing a lot of the hard work and locating the documents and sending me links to books. And so I am just so grateful for her assistant assistance with this as well as Celia the um archavist at Aworth who we're in the process of looking for for more. So anyway, what do I have next? I have a little bit of haul. I don't have really a whole lot of purchases, but I do have one that I want to show you.
A vintage pin cushion that I got. This thing is heavy vintage um worn velvet. I got this at a antique shop right here in Weston about a block away from my house. And not only did I find this, but um this was uh the day that right before the stitch day, I went up there. Renee had come down a day early, which she often does, and we get to spend a little bit of time together. And I said, "Hey, Renee, you want to go antique shopping with me? I'm I think I'm going to buy a spool cabinet." She said, "Sure, let's go where?" We walked right up the street. I had spotted a spool cabinet in the window one night when I was window shopping. I was out walking Archie after hours and I saw a spool cabinet in the window of this shop and I thought, "Oh, I need to look at that more closely."
And when I went in and looked at it more closely, it was in such good shape. And I said, "Okay, I'm buying it." And uh so I did. And the lady at the counter said, "Is your car anywhere nearby? We I can help you put it in your trunk." And I said, "Oh, that's okay. I'm gonna carry it home." So, I did and I It's right across the room from where I'm stitching right now or where I'm st where I'm sitting right now. And I'm not going to spin the camera around because the room is in disarray when I film, but I'm going to put a picture here.
I'm going to show you my spool cabinet.
That's my first one. I don't know if I'll get any more. It was affordable.
It's a lamb's um cotton. I don't know that name. I looked it up. I didn't find much on it, but it's from the early 1800s in its original condition. It doesn't smell like it just came out of somebody's attic or basement. The drawers were clean. I mean, it's in fantastic condition. So, it's sitting in um here in my kind of living dining room. And I'm going to show you another picture. It kind of is a uh on a twig uh folk art twig table. That's an antique.
I have a few of those with a sculpture on the top of it.
And it's that sculpture was made for me by a an artist um not far from here who makes things from found objects. And I provided him with a lot of the things that are in that sculpture. So that was made especially for me. So that was a really cool find. I'm happy to have that here. I kind of had plans of eventually putting it in my studio. I'm going to have to rearrange some things in there, but I like it where it is. It's you can see it right when I come into the room.
And I like seeing it. It makes kind of a nice um uh arrangement over there in the corner. I like it. So it may it may end up staying there. So anyway, what do I have next? I want to actually address a couple of things that were in the comments.
Um or actually one thing in the comments and a question I got on Instagram a day or so ago. So in my last video, I talked about um trying to help um somebody find the description box, how to find the information in the description box. And I said in that video, you can't see it on TV. You have to go to a device, iPad, phone, computer, whatever. And one of you said, you actually can see the description on your TV. I learned something. I didn't know that. So, you can. So, same way you find the um you find you if you are pausing your video, you have to press the button on your remote. You use the arrow buttons to go one way and you can do a thumbs up on the video or you can do a thumbs down. I hope you don't do that, but thumbs up.
Um you can go you can actually see comments then I noticed a little word bubble. you can, you know, arrow over to that and press on it and you can see comments on the video. I don't believe you can enter them there. I didn't investigate it enough to see if you can enter comments, but you can see other comments. So, if you arrow the other direction and go over and click the bell to be notified when a new video by your favorite um floss tubers comes up, just pass that as the word description.
You press your button on that and the description for the video comes up. Just a little part of it. But if you highlight that then click on that, the rest of the description comes. So thank you for teaching me something. It's there. Uh so thank I appreciated that. I appreciated learning that.
So on Instagram, I had somebody write to me who's a newer stitcher. She's my same age, but didn't grow up learning how to stitch. She asked me a couple of questions that I want to answer here because, you know, it's going to be old news for you experienced people, but news maybe for someone who's not experienced. She said, "When you're approaching a large sampler, how do you know where to start? How do you count?
Do you use counting pins? Can you help?"
I said, "Sure, sure." And I started writing to her and I said, "You know what? I'm going to talk about this on my video. It might make more sense."
People start wherever they want to, first of all, but I tend to start in the upper left. Some people start in the very center. Any chart will show you where the center is. Um, on Hannah, I showed you I started in the center top.
I found the center of my fabric. I just folded it in half. I knew I had margins, but I figured my margins on each side could get tight, so I just found the center by folding it in half. I measured down about 3 in. I had plenty of length I knew. So, how far down really wasn't critical to where I started that, but I started in the center. I found the center on the chart and I did that motif and then started going out towards the edges.
Some people who like to start in the bottom inhand stitchers start in the bottom on either the right or left. Some people start in the top right. It's just preference. What are you used to? I'm, you know, we read from left to right. So that's kind of just the habit I've gotten into the way I stitch. I like to stitch rows from right to left, but I stitch um start stitching from right to left. And I do stitch from left to right also. It's just, you know, you do what you do in the area that you're in. Um I stitch in a hoop.
I usually use this Nurge hoop right here. I like, as I said earlier, I like my fabric very tight and I can get that in a Nerge hoop. You can get that in other hoops, too. I have lately been using this uh hoop.
I can't remember who makes this one, but there are very few out there that make wooden sort of square ones. So, if you look for square wooden hoop, you will find it. I have bound the inside edge with just some this is ripped up um fine muslin that I have uh wrapped around the inner hoop. It just helps grab the fabric a little bit and helps me get better tension.
So, I use a hoop. When you first get your piece of linen out if you're going to start in the upper left, how do you even know where where is that? How far down? A lot of people preference is to go down three inches so you leave enough margin for framing.
I've heard some people who do their own uh pinning and and framing say you don't need three inches. Two will work. Some people do it even with less. I think framers probably would appreciate more rather than less, but they can make things work. I'm going to show you these tools. This is a couple of corner gauges that I have. This is a 3-in square. You can see it has holes in it um that are measured and marked at one inch, 2 in, and then the corner would be three. So when I pull out a piece of fabric, I will just lay it up in the top corner and come down here to where that corner is of three or and put a pin there. Or if I want to mark two, I'll just poke a pin down in it, take this off, and put my pin in. That's the top left corner.
So, that's how I where I start.
Your chart's going to show you where that is. Now, I like I said, this is a a teeny Nurge hoop. I I have only used this once for a very small thing. I don't use it a lot, but I just thought it'd be easier to show you with this.
So, you put it into your frame. Some people like to put their stitch from this side down where you're stitching what's called stitching in the ditch. I think that's called. Um, I don't do that. I stitch on the top, but you can get it your linen quite tight in any frame. So, I put it in, I tighten it up, but not super tight. Then I yank on this stuff.
Linen is strong fibers. I yank on the edges and top and bottom. Tighten it up.
Tighten my screw. Other sides. side to side. Tighten it up. Tighten my screw.
I've got a lot of play in this yet.
Tighten. Tighten. Pull.
Tighten. It's not going to go anywhere after that. It's pretty tight.
Then for me, I do not, if this was my stitching area, I don't like all of this excess hanging around. It gets in the way. I'm holding it like this. It's in the way over here of my hand that is stitching. So, what I'll do is I will roll it up.
Roll up my excess. I get it out of the way. I don't have any excess when I stitch. This side is going to kind of tuck underneath that um screw. And I use a variety of tools to hold that rolled up fabric. If I've got a goodiz roll, I use hair clips. These are just goodie hair clips. Clip it on there. It's going to hold that. Now I've got all this.
What am I gonna do about all this? I do not like it there. I use quilt clips. These large size quilt clips.
So I'll fold down the edge. I want it out of the way. Fold it down. Fold it down.
Put a clip on it. Fold it. So I get this all of my raw edges. I just don't like anything getting in the way of my stitching and it just kind of, you know, my hand knocks into it. My threads have to work around it. So then I've got something that looks like this. Well, this is still loose. I might still have stuff that I I can't put a clip around. Then I finish off with these magnetic cable ties.
I usually when I've got a clip I will wrap the cable tie around the hair clip. So, you can see it's holding front to back. And I can tighten that up, snug it up.
And then, um, I might, you know, wrap this up and put another one around. I've got, you know, probably 10 or a dozen of these magnetic cable ties.
And I'll link below to the ones I use.
Let me get this on here. Now, these these want to stick together because of the magnets. Now, I don't, you know, I move them around so they're not in um the way of where I'm stitching. These also then can be used as a needle minder. Your needle will stick there.
So, you don't necessarily need a needle minder. So, anyway, that's how I start.
Find where I want to start my stitch.
put a pin in it, then start stitching.
Now, the other thing that the gal on Instagram wanted to know, do I use counting pins? And if so, how do you do that? Yes, I do. I have a lot of them.
Mostly what I use for counting pins, however, are these kind of quilty pins because they have a fine point on them.
If I have to count something like she asked me if I grid my fabric or use counting pins. I do not grid. If I were doing a full coverage, maybe I would. I haven't done full coverage. I'm not interested really in doing full coverage, but I stick the pin in. I just go from top to bottom. I don't bring the other end out. Then I use another one.
I've got these kind of pins. Everybody has those. These are a lot of pins I inherited from my mom. I have these, you know, little glass headed pins with the colored ends.
So, this may be where I start counting.
I count down the two. That's one stitch.
Count down another. And I count down.
When I get to 10, I'm going to stick that pin in there. If I'm going farther than 10 or farther than wherever my next motif is, then I start counting another 10. if that's what I need to do and then I stick a pin in it just straight in.
That's how I do it. I'm not saying that's the only way to do it. It's not.
There are many ways of using counting pins. You have to play with these tools and find out what is going to work for you and what's going to be comfortable for you. But if you're a new stitcher and you don't have anybody showing you what to do, you know, sometimes you think, well, how does that work? So hopefully this answers her question.
She was specifically referencing this sampler Bridget Power 1840 that I did. Where did I start? I started in the upper center.
I really wanted to do there's some Lily of the Valley here. That's what I wanted to do first. So, I started right above that, but I was on an upper edge. And with a a densely uh a motifs that are dense like this one is, I had a lot of things I could count off of. Once you put your stitches in, then you've got other motifs that you can start counting over from or down from the um I wanted to show you just one other thing. I stitch with paper charts. I make a working copy and I tape pages together.
I don't ever stitch one page, then the next page. I don't want to stitch just part of a motif. If it goes over to the next page, I want to stitch the whole motif. So, I tape pages together. I use highlighters. Now, I'm going to show you just part of this chart here just briefly to help inform this stitcher.
So, this is an area that I just did. I had to count over. So I was, you know, I had this one done. I was starting here.
It was over and down quite a few stitches. So I did use my counting pins to to count that. I marked on my chart how many stitches? 10, five, five.
Counted them. And then I counted and recounted. Then also you can see I drew lines on here. So once I got the first few stitches in here of these motifs, was I lining up with where I needed to line up with the motif above and and you know, kind of to the side of it. That's how I do it. And I I go back and it's not to say I don't make mistakes. I do.
I got I've gotten off threads on this one a few times already on Hannah. So, you live and you learn. But counting pins, you know, we have a lot of beautiful ones. I don't use these necessarily for counting. They're more for decoration. And it's only because they tend to be a little heftier pin.
They're pretty to look at for sure. This one is a finer pin, but some of them just have a a really bigger one. Here's a cute one, a short pin. It's It's finer, but I have um my stitching chair.
You're on it. It's a one of those like 1940s chairs that was reupholstered uh several years ago. And it has very wide arms, upholstered arms. So, I can stick a pin in it. Several pins and my needles. I do. This one arm is my pin cushion. So, my counting pins are here. My lamp is right here. It's a magnifying lamp. You see it at the beginning of my videos often if I use the one intro. Sadly, this magnifier is no longer available.
It was on Amazon. U there are other ones similar to it, but I can't link that. No longer available, but it's here. My needle minders uh are attached to it because it's a metal stand. So, I've got all my needles over here. I use several I thread several needles sometimes with different colors so I don't have to constantly rethread one needle if I'm using different colors.
So hopefully uh that answers you. You'll play with these things. There are no hard and fast rules to stitching.
It's it's a an evolving process as we find what works for us, what feels comfortable and then what we want to continue with and what we may learn something new about and that like oh well that's way better than the way I was used to doing it. And that's not to say I can't learn something new too, but this way of stitching is what's comfortable for me. And um with that said, I you know when one of the Zooms I was in and I'm conscious of the time I'm running long, but um one of the Zooms I was in with Pam and Steph, we were talking uh Steph made the comment. I want to admit to you guys right now, I'm one of those people that stitches all the way across a line, one leg across before coming back. Even if I'm using overdyed floss, I don't do one stitch at a time. I don't either. And um one of the people in that Zoom said, "Oh, really? Even with overdyed floss, I was always taught you had to do one cross at a full cross at a time." Well, in stitching, there's really no have to.
I'm just going to throw that out now.
And um when I first came back to crossstitching and was introduced to overdyed floss, I Googled it. I saw a lot of people saying that's the way you should work with overdyed floss to make the best use of the variegation to avoid striping.
I don't agree with that. When I have done full crosses at a time, I get stripes because you're using the part of the variegated floss. You're completing that X with the same color. So you go across one row and with your X's and you get to another row and you might be in a different part of the variegation, but the color is more concentrated and to me it looks like stripes.
So, I like the working with variegated floss doing one leg at a time because as I'm coming back, I might be at a different part of the strand that has a little bit, you know, a more medium tone or lighter tone going over a darker one, and it makes the colors softer and blend better.
And if it does look like it's striping, then I could use a different strand of floss or a different part of the strand, fussy cut it a little bit and go over a a different color to blend the colors a little bit. I was having this conversation. I've referenced Renee Renee before. I'm going to say again. I was having this very conversation with her and she said, "Well, if you do that, why not just use DMC Jackie? What's the point?" And I said, 'Well, because even if it's softer variegation, it's still some variegation. It's lending a sense of movement and texture to the stitching that stitching with a solid color doesn't achieve. Plus, I like to sort of fussy cut my thread. If I need an area in shadow and I want to use a darker uh portion of the thread to really make that emphasize that, I will use that.
I'll do that. So, I just throw that out there because again, there really no you have to do it this way. There are no crossstitch police. You don't have to.
The one thing I would say is 40count fabric or 20 count ADA and above more than one floss thread is probably not going to look good for you. It starts to bunch up and fill the holes too much and can even distort your fabric. So at 36 count, like I said, you can make a choice, one floss thread or two. But if you try two on 40 count, try it. See what you think about it. Um, if it seems like too much, it probably is too much. I use overdyed silk and overdyed cotton on 46 count. Some people use those on 56 count when others might say, "You can't do that."
You can try it. If you like the way it looks, then you can.
Don't let anybody else I have a friend who used to say, "Don't color in my coloring book." I don't want them coloring in my coloring book, telling me what to do. Try it. See if you like it and what works for you. So, I do have some other things I could show you today, but I don't need to. I got some wonderful, wonderful gifts at the stitch day and thank you guys. I don't want to show all of that. I'm I would leave somebody out.
I know I would and I don't want to do that. Thank you guys. You were so generous. I did get some stitchy kindness this week. I want to thank the person who sent the book through Amazon, the Diane Schiffer book. Uh my thank you. Um, I had my friend Gwen who was at the stitch day give me a book. Thank you. Um, as I said, I got the um the uh bag. My friend Ena Lois Hills Needle Works uh Lois Hills. Yeah. Uh she brought a couple of project bags for me to use as giveaways in the future.
Another gal, Kathy, the one who came from Colorado, brought me some charts that I can give away in future. You guys are just so generous.
I thank you so much. Really, so I want to um again encourage you to go watch Susan Stanley's channel with regard to stitching with overdyed floss. I want to bring your attention to Audrey from Stitch Stitch Bead. She does a series that she calls Stitch with Me where she's teaching and, you know, working on some different techniques, maybe sharing how to do some specialty stitches. I think she's going to have a new one about French knots. But she recently uh experimented stitching with overdyed floss. If you did one cross at a time, it looks this way. If you do it one leg at a time, it looks this way. She put both ways on her same fabric side to side. She stitched with a very um highly variegated floss, one not so variegated and just compared and contrasted how that looked so that you know you had an example of it and you decide um what works for you. So, plans I have obviously uh as I said going to be going to the attic at the end of the month. I'm so excited for that. Vicky Janet posted an antique Quaker sampler in her collection, which she said unfortunately she's not going to chart because there are several out there that are similar, but it was cool to see that. as she's going to be presenting as are others. Very excited.
And the Bristols, of course, I'm interested in that. But with my current interest being so involved with Quakers, that's going to be what I'm really into.
Renee in her last video said she wants to start Clovis. I said, "Hey, I have Clovis. Let's stitch her together." So, I pulled Clovis out because Renee said, "Kit her up. You never know when I'll say today, let's start." So, I have the threads.
Um, it's not all of them here, but these are ones that I did not have. So, I got them. I got it. I can got plenty of stash of linen to work on her.
So, that's all I have to share with you today other than the montage of photos from the stitch with me day. So, I hope you'll sit and watch them, be inspired.
Thank you everybody.
It is always my pleasure. Truly, it is to be here with you and get to share my passion for this hobby with you and my well niche part of it uh with the historic samplers and um getting to share, you know, a little bit of teaching. how do I do this? Um, and it's just my way. It's not the highway. So, uh, thank you truly for being here and for all you share with me in the comments and when I get to meet you in person. I hope I'll be seeing some of you in uh, Phoenix in the next few weeks at the end of the month. I'll come back to you after I get back from the attic.
So, it'll be about a week later than usual, but I'll be back at the beginning of June. And until then, thank you ever so much. I appreciate you.
Namaste.
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