Down But Not Out

Yesterday morning I asked my husband if we could take a day trip over to Pigeon Forge.  The needlework shop, Dixie Darlin', is there, and I was hoping to start matching some Au Ver a Soie silk threads to the Scottish sampler I just purchased.  We are not on a strict budget, but I know they run about $4 a skein, and when you multiply that by a dozen or so colors, it can be pricey.  I thought maybe I could pick a few up at a time, since it would be a while before I actually started working on it. The trip is about an hour, so we decided to make a day of it.

I was thrilled to show off my new sampler, even though it is still framed.  I refuse to take it out of the frame until I am ready to chart, and even then I may leave it in and work from behind glass.  I asked my husband if he would take photos of each section so I can blow them up on screen and have an easier time seeing the pattern.  I know the piece is done on silk, and it is hard to count threads to get an accurate thread count so I can stitch on the correct size silk.  Plus, counting the threads for stitch placement is challenging, too.  The conservators lined the mounting board with a piece of raw linen, then mounted the silk on to that to help hide the few areas of damage, so I will be counting the threads on a similar colored background, not fun.

I browsed the thread supplies for a few minutes while my husband and step-daughter went to look at patterns.  (If you read my last post, you know he loves for me to stitch LOL).  There was an entire wall of Weeks Dye Works and other specialty threads, but I wasn't seeing any Au Ver a Soie.  The owner was sitting at a table working on filling a catalogue order for the little sleds that are so popular right now.  She is the only producer of the sleds, so if you buy one, you know where it came from originally!)  I asked about the silk threads, and unfortunately, she doesn't have a large enough market for silk threads to carry them.  So that was a disappointment.

As I browsed the shop, I did find that she had some back issues of Samplers & Antique Needlework Quarterly.  Browsing through I found some issue I had missed.  My subscription lapsed around 2013 and I had not yet made an effort to find them.  She had all four issues from that year!  So the trip was not a total waste.  I am so sad, though, the magazine will no longer be published.  It is one of the nicest magazines I have ever read, and I have almost every issue.  I felt the same way about Fine Lines magazine.  I had only just discovered it when it went out of publication.  I was browsing through a used book store one day, looking for embroidery books and magazines, and found issue S&ANQ, in great condition, for only $1! That is one of the special finds in my thrift store shopping.

Back to my threads...On the way to the Harley Davidson shop (if I get my stitching fix, my husband gets to have is HD or comic book fix.  He is such a geek), I was googling on my smart phone conversion charts for DMC to Au Ver a Soie.  I was able to find one, so I can match the colors with DMC, then use the chart to make a list of what I need in the silk threads. The Stitching Post in Catonsville, MD always keeps silk threads in stock, so I will just email the list to Melinda and she will get me what I need.

We left Pigeon Forge and headed north to Dandridge.  We had spent our anniversary on the road last year, as I had a doctor's appointment in Knoxville at the time.  On our way home, we found a quaint little restaurant called the Hitching Post and stopped for dinner.  It was an old general store which had been remodeled.  We sat near thee back, next to a wall sized stone fireplace which was absolutely amazing.  We had enjoyed it so much, we decided to revisit it for dinner yesterday, but unfortunately, it was closed.  The economy has been really hard on this area of TN, and many businesses have closed their doors.  In fact, when we first moved here to Greeneville, I was thrilled to find online a stitching shop right in town, but when we went looking for it, the storefront was still there, but the building was empty.

We popped into a Goodwill before leaving Dandridge.  I have been looking for storage options for the threads I will be receiving from the Thistle Threads class.  They supply all the materials needed for the different projects to be done throughout the year, so I will need storage for these threads, as well as their "Frostings" Club.  The designer of the program has worked with thread making manufacturers to reproduce silk and metal threads used in the 17th century.  Members of the club will receive spools of each of these threads in each color available (for a fee) and I am excited to be a member.  The first shipment of threads should arrive some time in December, then the package with the materials for the first class project should be arriving in January.  That will be a lot of threads to keep out of the reach of our new kitten, who seems to get into everything.

I have already found this to store some threads, but these are not closed drawers, each area is open.

I have my eye on a few apothecary cabinets, which would be perfect for storing a variety of threads, as well as other craft supplies.  Ebay has a few right now that I have on my watch list, but I am waiting for my husband's input before committing to a purchase.  He always sees things that I miss in my excitement of finding treasures.



We ended up heading back into Greeneville, and we tried a new Mexican restaurant, Casa Guerrero.  It was good, but not as good as Monterrey's in my opinion.  The chicken fajitas didn't have quite as good a flavor, and their sangria in "non-alcoholic."  I decided to try it, and was not happy with it.  The first ingredient was carbonated water, the second was sugar.  It was all downhill from there.  I prefer my sangria not fizz when I pour it.  At the end of the meal, the waitress asked us if it was our first time there, and we said yes.  She then pointed out there was  a free salsa bar we could have taken advantage of, with soups and different kind of salsas for your chips.  We may try it again some day, we did see a few dishes being served up that looked interesting, but it wont be on my first choice for dinner list.

 

 

Trees and Angels

I have spent three evenings working on charting the tree and angels on the 1801 sampler.
That may seem like  a lot of time, but there are so many little stitches to place for the leaves, it has taken what seems like forever. The angels have also been a challenge.  I have finally figured out that each one has its arms outstretched to the side holding onto the tree.   The wings are bit tricky, but I will do my best to chart them as Joanne stitched them. 

Under the tree and angels is a Biblical verse from Genesis, "The serpent tempted me and I did eat."  It makes me think that this may have started as an Adam and Eve sampler, but for some reason she replaced them with angels.  Perhaps Adam and Eve were too difficult to stitch, but given the work done on the rest of the sampler I don't see how this would have been too hard.  The piece is stitched on 60 or 65 count linen, and has satin stitch, chain stitch, cross stitch - not the work of a beginner.

Now that the charting is done, I am about to start stitching.  I have already stitched the bones of the tree, but I imagine it is going to take me quite some time to add all the little leaves.

I have also been working on how to chart the ribbons across the center of the piece.  The row of ribbon and bows is all done in chain stitch, and at this time I have not found a way in PC Stitch to chart a chain stitch. I have decided to use a grey backstitch to "draw" the ribbon and the stitcher will have to follow free hand with chain stitches.

Once the main tree is finished, I should be about 2/3 finished, which means the end is in sight. I can't wait to get this finished and framed.  I only hope that if it is published as a chart, the stitching community as a whole embraces it and enjoys it as much as I have.

 



The Healing Power of Stitching

It is Sunday morning and I sit in my living room enjoying a little peace and quiet.  The new carpet is in, and it turned out fabulous.  What a difference making one change can make to the feel of your home.  My husband has been using his new toy, a table saw, to cut new baseboards, and they are almost finished. Because the house is so old, it not only has baseboards, but it also has crown molding and corner moldings in every room.  As soon as all of that is back in place, I can finally get my needlework back up on the walls.  I miss looking at my "stuff."

Tomorrow the gas company will be here to install our corner fireplace, and my living room will be complete.  That means two rooms down, only six more to go.  We remodeled the bathroom first, because it was a mess, and that took us most of last summer.  The dining room is next, but most of the work is done there.  Hopefully we can do our bedroom after that, I am tired of looking up at nasty corners.  The crown molding has to be put up, and I hope to get some sort of heating device to sit inside the fireplace so we can eliminate the ugly baseboard heater.  But that is next spring...

I titled this post The Healing Power of Stitching, because I wanted to talk a little of my experiences with this.  In an earlier post I believe I mentioned that I had been in an accident.  I will, as briefly as possible, summarize it here.

In 2002, I had just turned 40.  I had received a promotion to department head of Infection Control at the State Hospital I had worked in for 20 years.  My son was stationed in Germany with the Air Force, and I had just received my passport in hopes of flying to visit him.  My life was finally falling into place after being a single mom for so long, working two and three jobs, and putting myself through RN school in the mornings and evenings while I worked night shift.

On Sunday, March 17th I went out with a friend to a local auction house to enjoy the day and maybe buy a prize or two; you never know where that unappreciated sampler will show up.  I had not given any thought to it be St. Patrick's Day, as I was not much of a drinker, and my running around days were behind me.  About 7:30 that evening, I decided it was time to head home.  As I left the auction house, there was a light drizzle falling, and I made a mental note to drive carefully, the temperature was just hovering above freezing.

As I was driving down the highway, I don't remember seeing too many people on the roads.  As I approached an "S" curve in the road, one minute the road was empty, the next there were headlights coming straight at me.  I had time to hit the clutch and the brake, I remember hearing the sound of the collision, but I do not remember any pain.  I was in and out of consciousness while the paramedics cut me out of the car.  I had been driving a small two door Toyota, the drunk driver that hit me was in a Lincoln Navigator, one of the largest SUVs on the road, so my car was a mess.  I have no memory of them getting me out of the car.  In fact, I have no memories for the next four weeks or so.

From what I have been told, as the drunk driver rounded the first curve in the road, a truck that was farther ahead of me saw him crossing the center line, and swerved to miss him.  The SUV clipped the back of the truck, which spun the SUV a full 360 degrees, and straight into me as I rounded the second part of the S.  I feel that had he not lost some of his momentum from the first collision, his impact with my car would have been much, much worse.  There was a woman following the SUV, and she was already on the phone with 911 reporting the man's dangerous driving, so help arrived quickly.  It turns out she was head of Patient Relations at University of MD's Shock Trauma, which is where I ended up that evening. 

According to my mother, also an RN, the first night they took me in to surgery for almost 8 hours.  Even though I was wearing a seatbelt, the steering wheel had crushed the right side of my chest, and I ended up losing the upper right lobe of my lung.  At this point, they had me in a drug induced coma, because the pain of just breathing would have been too much.  On Friday they took me in for surgery to repair my broken and dislocated right hip.  After surgery, mom said I could respond a little, the meds kept me from opening my eyes, and I was intubated for breathing because my lungs kept collapsing, but I could raise and lower my eyebrows in response to questions.  The next day when she came in, I was totally non-responsive, and after several hours she got the nurse.  It seems that sometime during the night I threw an embolus and had a stroke.  I was in a real coma.

It was April 17th when I have my first real memory of being in the hospital. I came out of the coma, but because off the area of the stroke, I was blind and I had no use of either arm or hand. (Not good for an avid reader and stitcher.) My other injuries included: a fracture at the base of my skull, fractures at C-7 and T-1 in my neck, my right knee had a laceration across it about six inches long, my right ankle was broken and both heel bones had been crushed.  At some point my heart went bad, and it was days before they finally got it regulated again.  Then my kidneys began to shut down, but the power of prayer is a wonderful thing, and I did not end up dialysis.

The other major event was my right hip developed an infection that turned out to be MRSA, a highly drug resistant form of Staph that can be deadly. The infection was treated, only to recur time and time again.  The last time it recurred, the surgeon removed the metal hardware he had installed to support the bone graft to my acetabulum (the socket where the thigh bone fits at the hip).  Once the metal was removed things settled down.  I still have to approach any kind of surgery to my hip with caution, because even though it has been years, the potential of reactivating the bacteria is a factor. Because I ended up losing so much muscle mass because of the infection, I have a really weak hip, and the injury left me with a bad limp.

I spent six and a half months between Shock Trauma and Kernan Rehab Hospital.  Over the weeks, as swelling was reduced around the optic nerves, small pieces of my vision began to return.  With extensive physical therapy, I also regained use of both arms and hands, with only a little residual weakness and tingling in my left hand.  I am still legally blind; my vision never fully returned, and what I do have is spotty and not continuous, meaning as I look around a room, things come in and out of my vision field.  I do not have enough vision to drive, and I still walk into things, or knock things over, but I can read, and best of all, I can stitch.  I just have to be careful where I place my stitches.  I have been happily stitching on one area, stopped to change threads, and began stitching again, only to realized I was in the wrong area.  It has been a challenge, but a welcome one.  I would rather face this challenge than not be able to stitch at all.

I finally left the hospital on October 1, 2002, but that didn't mean I was finished with hospitals.  I still had many surgeries ahead of me, most of them reconstructive in some way. Being admitted for surgery became routine. One surgery, I was in the recovery room after an operation on my vocal chords(they were damaged because of being intubated for so long before they did a tracheostomy).  There were no available beds on the units, and I was only being kept overnight for observation, so they just kept me in recovery for the night.  After I had gotten something to eat, I asked for my bag and pulled out my stitching.  The nurses looked at me like I was crazy LOL.  I just smiled, and told them it was how I kept my sanity. It was the one normal thing in my life I could count on at that time.

When I left the hospital in October, I returned to my apt.  My son had been sent home for a few weeks right after the accident, but he had returned to Germany, so I was living on my own.  My mom was already living in TN by then, and she made trips back and forth when she could, but I figured out how to survive. I had always been independent, but now how I had to LEARN how to be truly independent.  I used cabs to get me where I needed to go, and I discovered Pea Pod, a program from Giant Foods where I could have my groceries delivered.  The pharmacy delivered my meds, and other than social interactions, I was set. 

One of the part time jobs I had at the time of my accident was working Saturdays at a local needlework shop.  That was a dream job.  The women of The Stitching Post, in Catonsville, MD, where so supportive of me.  They would pick me up and take me to stitcher's night, or out to dinner with them if they were going out as a group. Over time I ended up moving closer to the shop, and I would get a cab to take me to visit, and one of the girls would give me a ride home after she got off from work.

There is only so much TV you can watch in a day, and when you have to plan every outing, you don't go out that often, so I spent a lot of time alone.  I tell people as long as I have books to read and needlework to complete, I am very happy to entertain myself.

My first large project I tried was a  chart I found in an Australian magazine from the late 1990s..  It is a Celtic alphabet that was charted to be done on 32 county linen.  Before my accident, I had bought material and threads, but had not started it.  Because it was such a large piece, I had bought 40 count linen to work it on.  So here was my first challenge, working on such a small count with my vision as bad as it was.  Each letter had backstitched boarders, and tiny quarter stitches to make the curves more flowing.  It took me  a long time to finally finish it, but I think it turned out pretty good for a blind chick LOL I know the photo isn't the best, but I will try to get a better one once it goes back up on my wall.

So, there is my healing story. I met my husband about seven years ago, online of all thing, (that is a story for another day) and I am happily married, and happily stitching.  He supports my needlework, and takes me wherever I want to go.  Living in Greeneville, TN, the stitching shops are a distance away, but once every other month or so he takes me over to Pigeon Forge to visit Dixie Darling and get my stitching fix. The problem is, instead of sitting on the porch with the other husbands, he comes inside with me.  He then finds two or three charts he wants me to stitch for him, and trust me, they usually are not small charts. So I spend a lot of my stitching time making things for him.  I love him, so it is ok.  If  you have seen the Sleep Hollow chart that came out last year, you know what I am talking about when I say he doesn't chose small projects. Here is a picture of the chart.

Wish me luck!

Never enough time to stitch

I haven't updated my blog because I have not been stitching as much as I would like.  We have been preparing our living room, hallway, and dining room for new carpet.  Between painting, sanding, dusting and cleaning up behind my husband, stitching has fallen to the wayside. But, after a year of walking on particle board flooring, we now have brand spanking new carpet with the best padding money can buy.  A few more days to put the house back to rights, next Monday our gas fireplace will be installed, and I will be stitching in all the comforts of the modern world. 

Our house was built in 1920 as a farmhouse. It has two fireplaces, but the chimneys had been roofed over at some point, so heating with fire is out of the question.  There is no ductwork for A/C or heating, and at some point a previous owner had installed electric baseboard heaters.  Last winter was wickedly cold here in the mountains of TN, and our electric bill ran at $500 or more for about three months.  We did our best to keep our pipes from freezing, but we did not succeed.  They froze solid for about two days in January when we were hit with a really deep freeze.  Fortunately, we had all the pipes replaced when we bought the house.  There were still galvanized steel piping throughout most of the house.  We replaced them all with the rubber hosing that is more likely to expand and contract along with any freezing, and we came through the winter blast with not a single leak.

The little stitching I have been doing, I have struggled with.  On the original piece, the stitcher created a flower basket, but the flowers and greenery do not sit evenly across the top of the basket.  I always struggle with charting for authenticity, leaving all the mistakes in place, or accuracy, correcting the more glaring mistakes for eye appeal. 

I hope to forge through this issue this evening and make a decision so I can get this piece finished. I am at that point in the piece when I have been working on it for so lone, I feel like I will never get it finished.  I need to get over that hump; when I can see the light at the end of the tunnel it seems to rejuvenate me and I become excited about stitching the piece again.

Today my new sampler arrived.  It is my first Scottish sampler.  Normally I would immediately remove the sampler from the frame and check it for authenticity, and to make sure it is backed with acid free board, but the frame is labeled as having been conserved/restored.  There is wear, especially at the corners, that I can see through the glass, and the piece has been mounted onto a piece of linen, also visible through the areas of wear.

There is the typical red/green in one of the bands, which is a strong indicator of a Scottish sampler, and the alphabet is embellished with the typical curly-cues of Scottish work.

The verse at the top reads "Fear God and keep His commandments is the whole duty of man."

The threads used in the name and date have faded, and are difficult to see, but it is by Margaret Newman, 1768.  There are sets of initials in different areas, as well a ship, a peacock, birds, trees, what appears to be a pomegranate, and an animal which has a long tail that curls back on itself, so I am thinking a cat or a lioness.  The linen thread count is very small, it looks to be about 60 count.  The alphabets have no J or Q and the S is stitched like an f, which is common in older pieces. I am still working out some of the lettering, in one band it appears to be F   I   I, a heart, I  F  A  M  P  and two more letters that I can't make out right now because the threads have faded to the same color as the ground.

The border has a flower pattern that is mirrored left and right, and the top and bottom are flowering trees and bushes.

Just from what I can see, there is cross stitch, queen stitch, satin stitch, chain stitch, and one I can never remember the name of, I will have to look it up in my resource books.  You work over two threads, stitch from the center hole and out to each of the surrounding holes, pulling the threads tight to form and open hole.

It will be a while before I get around to charting this piece, and when I do, I will need to take it out of the frame to make it easier to count threads and see stitches, but until then, she is going on my wall out of direct sunlight.

Thistle Threads

Last month I was searching for online needlework classes.  Having just moved to TN, we do not know many people in town.  Since neither my husband nor I work, we have a hard time getting out to meet new people, so I thought maybe I could develop some online friends that share common interests by taking an online class. And who knows, perhaps I might meet someone close enough to Greeneville that we could meet in person.

I found a webpage called Thistle Threads.  They offer several classes which teach needlework techniques popular during the 17th century.  As I browsed through the courses, the Cabinet of Curiosities class caught my eye.  Then I saw the price.  It was about half of my monthly income. I did further research into the classes, read testimonials, and decided I really wanted to take this class.  My husband supports me in anything I do, and said if it makes me happy, I should do it.

Even though it was very expensive, the course is an eighteen month class, and all materials for class projects are included in the pricing.  They also break it down so that you can pay monthly instead of paying up front, so that makes it easier to handle.  On further reading, all threads are reproductions of antique colors, and are silks and metal threads, so that alone takes a good bit of the cost.

We just now received lesson two. Last month we learned about the history of sewing casket in the mid 1600s.  This month we are learning about designing the needlework that is applied to the serface of the casket.  We are to pencil sketch our design ideas onto paper and post on the discussion board for input from others.  Most antique caskets have biblical themes, but that does not interest me at this time. 

We recently lost our one year old kitten, Phantom, to a hit and run driver.  He was the sweetest, gentlest, most endearing kitten I have ever known.  I am thinking about stitching him on the lid, with a willow tree in the background to represent mourning.  I am researching motifs and the symbolism in each motif and hope to use motifs significant to my own life on the rest of the casket.  The casket itself is the only thing that is not included in the price of the course, and it is a custom made piece with reproduction hardware.  The cost of this is also very high, but again, they offer pay as you go.  If we can afford it later, I will do a second casket, this one for my husband.  I will do it in Lord of the Rings scenes and characters.  He will be so thrilled, he is such a geek.

In the Beginning...

I have been thinking about starting a blog for a while now, and as I get closer to finishing my current needlework project I decided it was time.

The story of me


My name is Donna West, formerly Baker, and I grew up in a small town outside of Baltimore, MD.  As a young girl my grandmother taught me how to crochet, and to do embroidery. I played with needlework off and on for years, and in my 20s I discovered stamped cross stitch.  I made a few thing and hung them proudly on my walls.  I worked mainly from kits purchased at Frank's Nursery and Craft, a company that has sadly gone out of business.  Then one day I picked up a cross stitch magazine, and was amazed at the number of charts available.  I went to Joann Fabrics and bought some supplies and fell in love with counted cross stitch.

Leafing through a magazine one day, I found in the back a list of needlework stores advertising, set up by state.  I quickly thumbed down to MD, and found The Stitching Post www.the-stitching-post.com .  The next day I took a 20 minute ride over to Catonsville.  When I walked into the shop, the walls were covered in some of the most beautiful stitching I had ever seen. I felt like I had come home.

After several years as a customer, I saw an advertisement in their newsletter for a part time sales associate and I jumped at the chance.  I had been a single mom for years, my son was old enough to drive and take care of himself (for the most part), and I couldn't imaging a better way to spend a few evenings a week.

I worked at The Stitching Post for about three years, increasing my stitching knowledge, and my stash of charts and supplies. I started entering some of my pieces in the local fair, and always came home with first or second place ribbons for the individual category. I thank the talented framers and staff of the shop for helping me to present my needlework in the best possible way.

I began to stitch samplers in the late 1990s.  I loved the idea of a small child sitting at the knee of her mother, or grandmother, or aunt, learning the basics of needlework.  I kind of thought of it as my story. I subscribed to Samplers and Antique Needlework magazine, as well as Fine Lines (no longer in publication.) I bought books about girlhood needlework, and was thrilled when, in 2012,  I found a copy of Betty Ring's "Girlhood Embroidery: American Samplers and Pictorial  Needlework 1650 - 1850" on Amazon.com for less than $100.  When the two volume, cloth bound set arrived, I pulled the first volume out of the slipcase and began to leaf through the first few pages.  When I got to the title page, I was overjoyed to find it autographed by Betty Ring.  It was not advertised as autographed, and I have a feeling the seller had no idea what he was sitting on.  Betty Ring passed in  2014, and I am honored to own this fabulous book from one of the foremost experts on the subject. This is one of my greatest treasures.

In 2002, I had just turned 40.  I was department head for Infection Control at the hospital where I worked, my son was in the Air Force stationed in Germany, and I was still working Saturdays at The Stitching Post. On Sunday, March 17th, I was driving home from a day of shopping, and was hit by a drunk driver.  Very long story made short, I am now disabled and unable to work.  I ended up throwing an embolus shortly after the accident, and had a stroke, which left me totally blind for about two months.  Over the months of rehab, I regained some of my vision, but not all of it, I am still considered legally blind.  My blindness is in vision field, not acuity, so as long as I am looking right at something I can see it, but don't ask me to tell you what is next to that something.

Fast forward to today.  I am now very happily married to a wonderful man named Gene.  We moved to Greeneville, TN. in the summer of 2014.  We own an old 1920 farmhouse on a little over three acres of land on the south side of Greeneville.

The property had been vacant for a few years when we bought it, so there was a lot of maintenance work to be done, inside and out.  Summer time we spend a lot of our time outside, but come fall, we tend to slow down. We are currently scheduled to have carpet installed on the first floor, as the floors are not salvageable, and we don't have the money to get them refinished. Perhaps in the future we can rethink the carpet, but for now it will help keep the house warm and cushion my toes.  Once the carpet goes in, we are having a gas fireplace put into the corner of the living room.  Last winter was unusually cold for this area, and the only heat source is electric baseboard heaters.  We actually had our pipes freeze for about three days, so having a better source for heating will be welcomed.  Prior to moving in, we had the water turned on, only to find that all of the pipes were damaged in some way.  We had a plumber come out and he replaced all the pipes with hoses.  These hoses allow for contraction and expansion in case of freezing, and we were fortunate not to have issues from the three day freeze.

Over the last few years I have purchase several girlhood samplers of my own.  None of them are American, as the American samplers fetch quite a high price, but the English samplers are much more readily available.  I have worked on three of these samplers, charting and re-stitching them for publication.  I have not yet published, as I am waiting to finish this last sampler and will submit the three together.  I hope to publish under the name "Smokey Mountain Stitches", as looking out our second story windows the Great Smokey Mountains are easily seen.  My only regret at this point is not stitching these in silk.  My next project I plan to go old school and use silk threads.

The original piece:

This is done on 60 count linen, so the stitches are very small.  The verse is done over one thread, so it is very detailed.  It is done with silk threads, and uses cross stitch, chain stitch, and satin stitch. I have not completed the embroidery portions, so there may be other types of stitches. I am reproducing it on 40 count raw linen, so it is a littler easier to work with, but it still very painstaking work.

M work:

I hope to have the remainder finished in the next few months. I just purchased an 18th century Scottish sampler, and hope to complete it next.  That one I will make sure I do in silk threads.