Stitching with a Shimmy

Sad Sampler

I thought I’d written about this before, but I don’ t seem to have – maybe on a forum or rec.crafts.textiles.needlework usenet or somesuch.

So here goes again.

Years ago I was a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism (that’s also where I got the name Romilly, but that’s another story). I don’t fight, so I needed something to do with my hands — I started a sampler, taking historic motifs from various patterns I owned and mixing them up, adding a few of my own and such.

It was also a way to use my stash of Gentle Arts Sampler Threads and Weeks Dye Works threads.

What I learned, the hard way — they mean it when they say “don’t wash.”

How I learned it. Squirrel pee. Or bird. Whatever it was, it’s three drips on the sampler. In retrospect, these were not thread or fabric choices I should have made for a piece I was going to be carrying around in the woods with me!

I tried to wash out the stain – it’s still there, though I can’t get a good photo of it. I think it melted some of the fabric threads. And the red threads (aren’t they always the culprit?) ran. All over the old-formula lugana – the stuff with NO cotton or natural fibers in it at all (OK, so it was also a way to get rid of a fabric I hated stitching on…) so it stains easily.  It’s sad. Both the situation and the sampler.

The sampler sits in my UFO (unfinished objects) box to this day. I keep meaning to try overdying it in a tea color to antique it a bit – or just cut it up and use it in a crazy quilt as is. I never seem to get around to either of them, though. And so it sits. Waiting for me to do something – anything with it.

Details below. As usual, click to see closer.