Spring Samplers

Another season, another cross stitch sampler. Rose and I have finished our Spring Samplers.

That's Rose's on the left on pale blue, 32 count linen; I used a darkish cream 16 count Aida. We both had a lot of trouble choosing fabric for this design as there were so many colours that needed to show up on it. I'm not quite sure how many different blues Rose tried but, suffice to say, she'll be cross stitching on blue for quite a while. I had to change the white and one of the yellows for brighter shades to get them to show up against the cream (it's paler than it looks in that picture) and, even then, I wasn't too sure about it.

We got there in the end though. As is traditional, Rose ran out of thread for the border - the same green that we both ran out of last time - and I had to rush to get mine done before the end of the three months we set ourselves for each sampler.

The saga of me trying to sign my sampler in a straight line also carries on. With the Autumn Sampler, I dropped down a line half way through. I thought I'd got it right last time but, looking at it again, the '2021' isn't in line with the rest. Let's hope it's third time lucky. What do you think? Is it straight this time?

Would you like a closer look at my Spring Sampelr? This design is bursting with colour and full of little details.

Rabbits, birds and lots of flowers; those little purple ones remind me of Heart's Ease, the wild pansy and I had marmalade colour tulips like that in my garden this Spring. I thought the rain clouds and umbrellas were particularly apt as it rained throughout May here (which means my garden is now officially a jungle for cats again.

There are also sheep scattered here and there in the scene; my favourite is the one balanced on top of a hill, all on his own.

Here are my first three samplers all together. Don't they look good?

We're all ready to start our Summer Samplers now. Rose is coming to visit me next weekend - I can't wait! - so we're looking forward to being able to work on them together. 

I have to say, I'm quite relieved that I don't have to finish this one in three months. As it's the last in the series, it only has to be done in time to hang it up next year. While Rose is here we're planning to choose and order our sets of frames so that we're all set to hang the Autumn ones up at the start of September.