Winter Sampler Progress

My daughter and I are both enjoying working on this season's cross stitch samplers from Little Dove Designs. This designer is particularly good when it comes to choosing colours and those in the Winter Sampler are especially good - strong pastels which you wouldn't normally associate with Winter but which work well.

This is what I've done so far ...

As I did with the first sampler, I started in the middle and then worked downwards. I particularly like the teapot and the hot water bottles; the line underneath them looks just like a shelf with a decorative paper trim. I've got a couple more trees to stitch and a bird table before I can start on the big picture at the top.

Rose works in the opposite direction to me, doing the top first.

As you can see, she also leaves all the backstitch until last which accounts for the absence of any lettering. That line of tree trunks next to the skates will have branches eventually too. She's working much quicker than me (I know, I know, it's not a race), probably because I keep feeling sick tired and have to stop to lie down!

This one seems a bit quicker to do than the Autumn one was, probably because there aren't so many little leaves to stitch; this is a good thing as we started so late. We have until the end of this month to finish and sort out our supplies for the Spring Sampler.