Large family sampler

I’m proud to announce that I’m finally finished with my big family sampler.

I’m ashamed to say that it took 10 years to complete !

In 2008 I was a stay at home mom with small children, and a growing interest in cross stitch. I spend a lot of time browsing online and looking at photos of beautiful antique needlework, and birth samplers. I had already stitched 3 birth samplers for my children (though I still need to stitch one for my second son), and now wanted to stitch a family sampler.

I came across a website where you could get a sampler designed from antique alphabets, customized just for you. I contacted the lady, and we exchanged many emails before we agreed on how the sampler should look. I remember it was a little expensive to order a custom sampler, and buy the needed linen and hand-dyed premium silk embroidery floss. But I justified it by telling myself this project will keep me busy for a long time, and would become a beautiful piece to decorate my then plain walls with.

Little did I know that it would get me completely distracted, and initiate the start of a cross stitch business of my own – and such a distraction it was, that I only completed it ten years later.

Falling in love with antique alphabets, I started to buy my own from Ebay – which eventually led me to buy a cross stitch software, and experimenting with designing. Before long I had set up a website, and the rest is history….

Now ten years down the line I am contented to be finished with the sampler, and even more pleased that I purchased enough of the beautiful silk embroidery floss I had decided to use. It turns out the small company I bought it from eventually went out of business, and no one else does exactly the same silk dyes. 

All that remains is to have it framed professionally, then find a place to display it on my now very full walls.

Here is the link to the website where I got the sampler, I do not know wether it is still in business or not. www.nouveauencore.com

My large family sampler

Stitched on 32 ct linen with one thread of hand-dyed silk floss

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