No not me, my work desk mate, Alex's son and daughter in law. I say desk mate and we were physically for a lot of years then virtually for the last few. We have been on the same team, on different teams, the same team and so on and at the last the same team again.
I did think about making quilts, however I was not so sure I would be able to get two finished in time. Nor was I sure what style would feel right. So cross stitch, asked Alex if stitching would be OK and he happily agreed I would not be stepping on any family stitching toes.
On the basis of that, I started thinking about what to do and I was let in on a little secret, girl and boy twins. Oh so what to do. I have done a few birth samplers before and shared most of them on this blog. I did consider the patchwork bear and bunny But it did not feel quite right.
The solution came when I recognised the mental block. I wanted to do something for Alex and at the same time birth samplers are usually for the parents with the potential of being in the child's room and if very very lucky something they might like to have as an adult.
The solution presented itself after seeing some nice All Our Yesterdays designs turning up in some Facebook cross stitching groups I belong to. And the recollection I had a collection by that designer. Often there are designs with groupings of children, might I have one of a boy and girl of a similar size?
Oh I did , a boy and girl holding hands on the beach looking out to sea. Perfect, even more perfect it would not be difficult to stitch each one separately for the parents and together for Alex and his wife.
And I found a set of three frames that would be prefect. Well once I double checked the measurements, you may recall mentioning an AOY project and the irksome approx. on some frames. This is the project although you may note that there was a change in plan re the little wooden embellishments on the single frames. I will come back to that.
I am not very good at stitching repeats of things, these were nice to stitch and did not make me feel like the second set were repeats.
Worked out that on 18 count they would fit the frames, unusual for me but that is the way it worked out this time. The pair first. Then separated, and add the beach and the sky.
And the names, to the side on the pair in blue and underneath in dark grey on the individuals. Normally, I add at minimum the birth date , in this instance however, I was not able to decide where it would fit well, so no stitched birthdate, it is on the framing label.
There is a fair bit of white left unstitched and it felt just a bit cold. And as noted when I was framing them back in February it occurred to me to frame them over a coloured sheet of paper. Then a triple coloured sheet, with yellow behind the beach section, a mid blue behind the sea and a light blue for the sky.
It worked very well, the difference with the coloured backing was very clear to the naked eye. I think it can be seen on the photographs, that hint of colour warming the white.
I had some card in the perfect shade of blue and cut the mounts myself and framed the pieces myself. The frames for the single figures have little wooden starfish added, They came from a WOX cover gift of beach patterns and one star fish and one conch shell. Happily my BFF had the same and gave me her starfish and they looked more balanced on the bottom.
Here they are framed, and lots of pictures as I could not decide the best arrangement and because I was and am rather pleased with how they turned out. I do tend to take more pictures when I am happy with the end result in an attempt to capture that joy.
Alex kindly came to collect them, and whilst visiting took my Dad for a short drive he rather enjoyed.
I did tell Alex that it was his choice which he kept and which were for the parents, he kindly said he wanted to keep them all but would ask his wife (smart chap Alex) and they settled on keeping the double so if they wanted to the children could each have their own in their room in the future.
I asked if I could have pictures of the babies with the samplers and if I could send them into WOX and have them on my blog. After checking with their parents he said yes and sent me some well posed pictures (just after bath and bottle time so they were relaxed and co operative, I did mention Alex is a smart chap).
After blurring out the surnames for a level of privacy I sent them off and we waited to see.
As I currently subscribe I get the magazine that bit early to the newsagents, my October copy arrived on 5 August. With a very nice surprise in the letters section.
Published, and star letter , They cropped the double image to make them fit. As soon as I saw it I sent a message to Alex letting him know, he and his family had been looking forward to it happening. I had said there was no guarantee (although beautiful babies was an advantage) and that it usually takes a little bit of time.
I remain very happy with how all of the aspects of the project turned out and a new method of enhancing the stitching during the framing process. They were getting framed when I was framing the dragons over gold, I was having quite a successful framing time at the beginning of the year.
Now as that was a wordier post than has been the case recently I think you deserve an nice Forestella song as a reward for getting this far (did you notice they have now made their way into the banner below the bog title?) This is Together, with a translation of the lyrics which are in Korean.
This is a monthly share a pattern (current or past) on a theme voted for by previous participants.
So today I think I have enough to participate.
Firstly the moon and stars from this birth sampler I designed inspired by both the child's name and the nursery picture the grandmother to be sent me.
I had been looking for material that matched the wall colour but had to settle for including it in the shades of the moon. CLICK HERE for an in progress image.
Like Jo I have also completed the stitching on this little bear but I have not fully finished it as yet.
this is the first link up of the year with basically anything connected to the word "gift" is allowed, whether it was a gift TO you or is a gift FROM you.
please use the link at the end of this post to visit Jo over at Serendipitous Stitching for links to the other participants.
So Christmas gifts starts previously shared are now gifts given I can share a finish from one of those teasing starts.
Well guessed Jo it was indeed a bear...for a birth sampler.
This is not the Alphabet I had intended to use, I had one in mind but the T on that alphabet did not look quite right and I could not get the T modified to work. I joked to my BFF that is always appears that way that it is the least clear letter in any chosen alphabet that is the one you need.
I further mused that perhaps if I called the parents and asked nicely they might see their way to changing the baby's name to something that started with a friendlier letter from my chosen alphabet. Not much to ask? Well perhaps not, the mother had already had some raised eyebrows at her choice of name (not from me I hasten to add) so I thought perhaps not and just designed my ownT and an alphabet to go with it.
Then I moved on to the date and struggled with getting the N for November to look right, as I moaned about that to my friend I wondered if perhaps in this instance I could persuade the government to change the name of the month to Ovember as I thought I could manage a reasonable capital o.
As that also seamed unlikely to succeed I struggled on and got it finished. I quite like doing this patchwork edge it is colourful, feels reflective of me and my interests as well as being good to use up bits of thread.
I have obscured some of the lettering for the privacy of the child concerned.
I did , for Christmas get a crafting themed gift. A book, Meg Evans Hand-Stitched Boxes.
Who knows maybe some day I will do something from it. I am fond of boxes.
It took me three attempts to get the stars to work, it was the order of the stitches that was the key to getting the lines to stay put. I have obscured the date on the sampler for the child's privacy.
it sat in the frame just nice and was off to the mother via intermediaries due to the various lockdown arrangements.
She let me know via Facebook Messenger that she was pleased with it, indeed she included it in a montage picture when she updated family and friends on her baby's progress.
nope, not in this instance. I was going to do the crescent moon in shades of grey to echo the moon wall decal used in the nursery. I was thinking a variegated thread would simplify the process.
However, whilst looking for a grey I came across a purple and that was an even better choice for co-ordinating with the nursery theme.
I had a couple of false starts deciding where to have the darker shades and I also ended up altering the point to the right of the baby. (Yes I did a little bit of back stitching to get a feel for the face)
I'm reasonably happy with the way the purple moon turned out.
so the gown as as near the middle as anything in the design, the place to start. I had not picked the colours to use before I started, I thought I would see how the white looked and then figure out the shading as I went.
I changed the drape of the gown from the original as I went.
It was not looking particularly impressive at this point but held onto the magic of backstitch would pull that together.
The next step to add the face and hair.
On my design the curves for the head were ok but of course some of the curve was in my drawn line and not in the stitches.
I used two tones for the face to put a little blush to the cheeks, not sure that shows up. Perhaps it is subtle enough to make a difference without jumping out.
Face and hand completed next step the hair.
I asked the baby's grandmother what colour it was, she sent me a picture.
I said a mid hazel and she agreed. Of course with babies what you see is not always what you get so it remains to be seen if this colour will remain reflective of the child's hair as time goes on.
I did once do a sampler and just used the shade on the pattern I had picked. I was sewing pre birth of the child and she had the courtesy of being born with exactly that shade of hair.
I have done quite a few birth samplers, usually by combining elements from various pattern books with a tweak here and there to make them more individual.
This time round I has something particular in mind once I had seen a picture of the nursery, I could not find it. I was sure I had used it before, then I thought about it and it was probably 20 years ago and I could not find the pattern.
However it was quite stuck in my head, so I decided to try and design what I wanted from scratch. So out came the graph paper.
And the coaster, well it was the nearest circle to where I was sitting when I started and I wanted a curve.
For a moon
As a seat for the baby, in a robe. (that had some later adjustments)
Name and my first thoughts for stars (they would not last)
but I had a plan, I had some material thanks to my friend
I almost had an issue with this finish. I worked out the lettering for the name using my normal go to alphabet. It was too small. So I set to with a different slightly larger alphabet.
So what was the problem?
Not sure if it was something on the TV in the background, but the second set of names in the new alphabet was not the name the parents had chosen! Still a girls name and starting with the same first letter. Good job I noticed before I finished the stitching. Never done that before, almost missed double letters out yes but a completely different name...oh dear.
So the IOU from the baby shower is redeemed.
I am quite pleased with the finished piece.
Thankfully so were the parents and had a chuckle over the almost renaming to Edith.
I finished this birth sampler a while ago however, I had made my usual mistake of being captivated by a design without first checking I had a frame to put it in.
I have a STASH of frames (to which kind people occasionally add) and occasionally I plan and pick the frame and design together, not as often as I should. Then I have to find a frame, normally not too difficult for smaller pieces like the sampler.
Except this year the fashion in frames appears to exclude any with a six inch square aperture unless they are made with very deep sides like a box.
It has taken an age to find a frame the right size and in the end I had to get a framed picture and take the picture out.
I meant to frame it yesterday, take it into work and ask if one of my co-workers would be passing the parents home and could drop it off. Regrettably I was not feeling up to it and thought another day won't make a difference.
So at work at lunch and there are mother and baby having popped in to say hello. How frustrating I could have given it to her personally, ah well it is done now and I will take it into work.
Birth sampler
Oh the date of birth, time and weight are in white so only visible if you look very very hard.
(PS I have no idea how the finished item was received, it was hand delivered by the colleague mentioned but the mother did not open it in her presence. So not initial reaction. The mother did not return to our office having been promoted just before her maternity leave she was posted to a different department for her return.)
A colleague at work has had a beautiful baby girl (aren't they all beautiful) so as I had offered some time before the birth to do a sampler it is time to look at my patterns and design something. The only suggestions of likes from the mother are pink and lemon!
So whilst I puzzle over that I have a picture of a previous sampler to share, picture recently received via the connectability of Facebook.
This is a compilation design, the bear from one book, the baloons from another. The little animals from a third.
The lettering around the edge and the balloon strings are my own.
The layout worked out on graph paper.
I have used this basis design twice, this was the first and original. The second was again for a work colleague with changes to the colours of the balloons, lettering and of course a different name and birth details (written on the balloons)
I still like this and still have the graph paper pattern so I do not rule out the possibility of using it again. However, it is not quite right for Kyra and Colin's daughter 's sampler.
I have used the same basic pattern for two birth announcement cross stitches. On the peach framed version I added flowers to extend the design into the rectangular frame.
On the second version I cut into the mount to make room for the feet as I wanted to keep the ducks on the mount which came with the frame. A yellow card behind the fabric warmed up the tone of the material and made the ducks yellow.
I like to work the child's name in so it is easy to see (I have blurred them out here for the children's privacy) but to put the birth date, time and weight into the design in a subtler way so you have to look for it. In this case worked into the flowers.
Little alterations can make a big difference and keep an item unique even if you reuse a favourite motif.
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