July WIPocolypse...and the British are coming!

Seems like I just did a WIPocolypse post but I was pretty late with June's so they've sort of run together.  

You ever get stalled on a big project?  I don't think I've touched my Pride & Prejudice sampler in about a year now.  I just got to where I had to do more planning and things weren't turning out as well as I'd hoped so I was avoiding working on it.  I was inspired to do this sampler when the "neighborhood" samplers were popular a couple years ago.  And as usual, I went a bit overboard because this sampler is pretty big..it's 18" x 16".   Without having charting software it's kind of tiresome to work out what goes where, converting patterns from DMC to silk, reversing patterns I needed to go a different direction, etc.   I had more motifs that I wanted to use than I can fit in, even as big as this piece is. If I had to do it over, I would maybe do it over-1 on 25-count or something like that, and pick a different linen.  But at the time, I was all enthused to start it and the LNS didn't have much in stock that was a big enough piece so I ended up with cream 36-ct Edinburough linen.

(P.S. I always get a few questions about this sampler...it's a composite of motifs pulled from lots of other patterns, I did not draw and design all of it myself.  I do have a separate tab on my blog that lists all the patterns I've used so far, I think all of them are still in print.)

Anyway...I got it out about 2 weeks ago and forced myself to get it going again.  I seem to have gotten past my mental roadblocks and I was able to make some good progress.  Woohoo!!  When last we visited this project, this is how it looked...........

I've added a vignette of Lizzy & Darcy in the lower right corner.  I will be adding a tree next to them soon I hope.  

Then I added the military regiment in the upper right corner of the sampler.  Remember all the women were swooning over the handsome soldiers and of course we must have the infamous Mr. Wickham you know!   I was so thrilled when I found this pattern came out a couple of years ago  - it was perfect timing for me.  It's by Brenda Keyes' The Sampler Company  - it's called the "Over the Hills" sampler.  Before I found it I was trying to figure out how I could chart some soldiers and believe me I hate charting anything - I can't draw and find it extremely tedious.   Don't my British soldiers look great marching with the flag bearer and his Union Jack?   Sometimes, a plan does come together! (oops I just realized I forgot to finish the 2 little trees next to the tents...just the stumps are showing LOL)

And now here is a snap of the total sampler...you can see there's still a lot of blank space where I have to fit in Pemberley and Rosings Park and a few things, but I'll get there eventually.

 

Now I've decided to start a new project...a couple of Christmas stockings for my dogs.  They've had some cheap ones we bought of course but I always intended to stitch stockings for them that would match the ones I did for my husband and myself.  These are the old ones from the Cross Stitch & Country Crafts magazines..I still think they are lovely patterns even though published so long ago.

In my opinion, the designer never got the credit she deserves as the magazine never published her name. I'm pretty sure these were designed by Donna Kooler.   I know if I decided to stitch complete versions for the dogs that it would take forever and the poor dogs are already 8 years old so I better hurry up!  I'm going to stitch the abbreviated patterns where you stitch a nice cuff and just do a wallpaper pattern on the rest of the stockings.  I should be able to get these done easily by Christmas and I bought enough of the finishing materials that I can make them match the other 2 stockings.

 

I've got my mushroom Lugana cloth sitting out in the sun trying to fade it a bit...I noticed the new piece I bought is darker than the cloth I used to make the other two.   It doesn't really matter but I'm giving it a try anyway.

I've overdue celebrating another blogiversary (they come around so fast!) so hope to plan a giveaway over the next few weeks.  Stay tuned to this space..and thanks for spending a few moments visiting me!