My Personal Favorites
Here is a small collection of my favorite work:
I am changing my list from five.
I will tell the story of each as I post it. For several, I have told the stories many times, others this is the first time.
This is my Drawn Thread Sampler's Doodle.
Drawn Thread Sampler's Doodle
Some time after I stitched Drawn Thread Sampler I decided to make a Doodle Sampler that went with Drawn Thread Sampler. What I can't remember is why. Somebody must have noted the size of the original and suggested people might like to try the techniques but on a smaller sampler. That's what makes the most sense. I have placed the samplers side by side so you can see the differences: the techniques are the same, but the Doodle Sampler is much smaller.
Drawn Thread Sampler's Doodle
Drawn Thread Sampler's Doodle, Part 1 Congress Cloth and Linen
Drawn Thread Sampler's Doodle was the first project I stitched on linen. I remember trying several linens before I chose one with a lot of body. In the years afterward I stitched a handful of projects on linen but always returned to congress cloth.
I am at heart a needlepoint person and I found the slubs of linen attractive but also confining: they always seemed to interrupt a pattern I had chosen in just the wrong place. I also wanted the stiffness of congress cloth so that I had the options of long tramé threads and stitches over multiple meshes.
For a while Zweigart made linen congress cloth and I loved working on it; alas years ago Zweigart discontinued it.
Drawn Thread Sampler's Doodle
Drawn Thread Sampler's Doodle, Part 2 The Instructions for Drawn Thead Sampler and Drawn Thread Doodle
The Instructions for Drawn Thread Sampler include both Samplers and are approximately 150 pages long. I say 'approximately' because the instructions are divided into four parts, three are short parts dealing with the count for each sampler; the last section of the instructions is 142 pages long.
I don't have a hardcopy here (the instructions are digitalized and live at my print shop).
Back in the days I wrote these instructions I was all but computer illiterate. I laid out the pages in an old app called PageMaker, but I drew all of the graphs and diagtrams by hand. Years later, the kids at the Apple Store taught me how to use Illustrator.
I have not updated all my hand-drawn instructions. Yes, they would look better (although I have followers who tell me they prefer my hand drawn graphs), but who knows if I would get them tranferred correctly. As they are in their old form, I know they work. How do I know? In all these years there are lots of Drawn Thead Samplers and Doodles. So I have a hard and fast rule that I don't fiddle with instructions once a number of people have stitched the pattern and I know it works.
Why am I writing all this? Because a good number of people have requested I sell the pattern at E-Week this year (E-Week is my large sale in October).