School's Out

Well about 8 weeks after the Schoolhouse Sampler stitch-along began, with very nearly daily stitching, my Schoolhouse Sampler is complete! The sampler was created by, and the stitch-along hosted by, Rebecca Ringquist of Dropcloth Samplers. The month of January was really inspiring, with a daily video from Rebecca, either showing us how to do a certain embroidery stitch or giving us ideas on what stitches might be good where as we stitched our samplers. Of course, even though the sampler came preprinted, it was totally up to us to make it our own with our own choices of threads, colors, and stitches. 

Early on, I took Rebecca's suggestion to stitch with a double-thickness of perle cotton #8. It definitely makes more of a statement than single-thickness, and with the variegated threads, it adds to the color-play.

We began with the rows and boxes on the left-side of the sampler. I chose a pretty loose color palette, selecting colors as I went. You can see there are just a couple of areas where I used wool yarn for the couching stitch - the reddish along the top, in the couching stitch section.

I was, at the same time, excited about and dreading all the alphabets, of which there were three. With the largest set, I really let it go, using all sorts of stitch patterns and colors. Some of my favorites are the 'P,' done entirely in French knots; the 'V', my first try using a running stitch to fill in a letter; and the 'N', in a variegated new-to-me brick stitch.

I left my name and the date for nearly the last. And you can see, because I forgot to remove the marking before taking photos, but I drew my name on before stitching. I actually printed a signature very similar to my own, and traced it on. I spruced the 'D' up a bit by couching it with two different thread, and I'm really happy how it turned out. Oh, and I tried a new stitch! That variegated gold-green all around my name and the year is done in a 'heavy chain stitch.' You can see the difference between it and a regular chain stitch in the photo below, where they are side by side.

Traditionally, samplers often included the birthdays of the maker, and though I chose not to do that, I did add some significance using different colors of thread to outline and stitch the 1, 9, 5, & 6. (Scroll up just a bit and you'll see.)

Also, I chose to highlight certain letters in the alphabet above using the coral thread - and with those letters, you could spell my first and last names, just for fun.

Lastly, and truly it was a last-minute design decision, I filled in around the largest alphabet just a bit with tiny 'cross' stitches. Not sure they'd officially count as embroidery, but  maybe?

So Schoolhouse Sampler was definitely one of my favorites among alllll the Dropcloth Samplers I have stitched in the last couple of years. Honestly, I'm going to miss stitching on it!