3-20-23 – Start-itis again

I have a terrible case of start-itis and although I just started Three French Hens, I needed to start another project last night after dinner.

Here’s the progress I got on Three French Hens.  Nearly half the design is done – Santa needs some boots and some eggs in his basket.   But he has no place to collect those eggs from yet since the coop and hens are not stitched yet.   But they will be soon.

And then I started a small red sampler from Hands Across The Sea.  It’s called Hilda Weiner 1908 and was part of the recent Letters From Europe box released in honor of the designers birthday.  The charts included (mostly red samplers) are from different countries around Europe.  My plan is to stitch the ones at some point that were stitched by girls in European countries I have been to.  This one was stitched in Austria.

I’m working on the first page so that stitched area is only half as wide as the finished width will be.   I love all the research HATS includes in their charts.  Hilda wasn’t particularly fussy – when she found out she left out the “I” in the first alphabet, she just slid it in between the T and U.  There are other letters misplaced and other letters missing (because the German alphabet was based on the Latin alphabet which only had 21 letters.)  It’s like a bit of a history lesson/background with each chart.

So here’s a close up of how far I got after dinner.  The fabric is from my stash –  Atomic Ranch in the color Weathered Stone, 18 ct.  And the floss I chose was one of three red spools that came in the Letters from Europe box.  It is au ver a soie 1003, 100% silk, #681.

I tried one strand but it wasn’t enough coverage; I wanted those letters to really stand out.  So I’m using 2 strands and railroading my stitches and it looks fantastic.