My Summertime Story  Page 2

I found Two Barely Started Samplers

July 19, 2023  

I was game to try. Scroll down for how I stitched Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

July 20, 2023

So after I finished ECS (who remained a doodle for a long while, did I tackle

Susan B.?  Noo, I set ECS aside and got brave. My story continues tomorow.

My Elizabeth Cady Stanton

This was my trial run, stitched on a doodle and with a background. In my final sampler,

I omitted the background, I will discuss it later.

How I worked: it took me several tries to size the portrait. I needed to figure out how to make it as small as I could. Then I traced the photo several times till I got the hang of the lines.

I darkened my favorite, traced it onto different pieces of congress cloth, probably a total of 6 times. I picked the two drawings  I liked best and tried to stitch them both. If I remember accurately, it took me a third time to get when I thought was the best.

Most people ask me about the hair: long sloppy Bullions out of three different threads and then brushed lightly with a Bunka Brush.

WAs it difficult to do? Yes, very. Why? In my treatise on faces last year I said so truthfully, it all comes down to the number of meshes.  ECS's face is only 32 stitches wide.

With a nod to the two barely-started samplers that inspired this project, I worked out a border and an alphabet and enjoyed a time of gentle stitching.

The techniques were very easy as you can see, but there was another element: I was living on the edge of a guess whether it would work.  At this point I had an uncropped doodle of ECS and I was relying on a very sketchy undetailed drawing of a sampler I hoped might work. I will write more about this tomorrow.

July 22, 2023  

I have said this before: I am by nature not a dare devil, but needle in my hand

and I can turn into one. This sampler is a perfect example.

With a rough sketch on a piece of tracing paper, I picked up my needle and began stitching the sampler,  essentially I was guessing what might work.