Tuesday, September 22, 2009

A Sampler for My Girl

Here's a little birth sampler I designed and stitched for my daughter a few (seven) years ago. It's stitched on 28ct Carnation Pink Cashel linen using Caron Waterlilies, Weeks Dye Works, and DMC floss. Mill Hill beads are sprinkled across it. The focal point is the footprints at the top. Yes, those are real. Hard to believe now that her feet were once that small... smaller even since this was made when she was a few months old.

At the top of this photo you can see the Caron Waterlilies in color #088, Mountain Meadow. The inspiration for the colors in the sampler came straight from this beautiful silk thread in shades of pink, gold, and green. Right below it is the Weeks Dye Works over dyed cotton floss in "Cypress."

Here you can see the tiny cross stitched duckies and some of the fancy stitches and beads.

And in this portion there are tiny back-stitched rattles, my daughter's name, birthdate, and birth weight, and some more duckies and hearts. There are lots of hearts in this piece because she is so dear to me.

I loved the colors so much I also bought a piece of creamy yellow linen and added her footprints in pink paint, thinking I'd make this again in a slightly different colorway. I will probably go ahead and do it. It will be interesting to see if what kinds of changes I make to the design now after seven years.

8 comments:

Vicki W said...

That is so sweet! What a special piece for her to cherish some day for herself.

angie.a said...

Aw, this is awesome. You should do up the other one and put it away for when she has a baby some day!

kbenco said...

That is so pretty. I think angie's idea is awesome, maybe a grandbaby's footprints would fit on the sampler too? I am inspired to get out my baby's sampler. It is only 12 years old :) and just needs me to put her name and date on it. I wonder if she wants it?

Goosegirl said...

Very pretty idea. I love the little footprints.
My first baby is turning 18 on Friday. I wish I had thought to do something like that 18 years ago when her feet were so tiny.

julia said...

What a lot of love in that sampler!

Shannon said...

Makes me want to do cross stitch again...

Sweet!

Blakely said...

Beautiful! I love the footprints!

Meredith said...

What a neat idea! I love it! I think my kids feet are now too big but if my sister has another baby I may have to make one for her/him!