Stitch-A-Week English Garden Sampler--SusanF & Busy_B

[Busy_B]

A little while ago, SusanF posted about a yahoo group that she belongs to called Friendly Stitchers. I also joined, and they are doing a group SAL that will go the entire year. The theme is English Garden, and each week there will be a small pattern posted (20 stitches x 20 stitches). Throughout the year, there will be new stitches to learn and try which is why I was interested in doing it. If I remember correctly, the size is 149x168 stitches.

I'll post pics of my progress in a little while.

[coffee_freak]

yeah! I love when there is a massive SAL!!

[Busy_B]

Okay, here's the promised pics. The first one is just the grid for the project. I did it in a DMC varigated. The large square in the middle is for an alphabet, but I'm not big on the alphabet that is for the pattern, so I might either make my own or come up with something else to put there. I'm doing this on 28 ct white monoco evenweave.



Here's the pic of the first 4 weeks of patterns. Week 1 is a robin, week 2 is an owl, week 3 is snowdrops, and week 4 is a cottage.

[RosemaryH]

What a great project to be working on. So many different pictures and learning something at the same time. I will enjoy seeing updates to this one. If there are any motifs that you really dislike I guess you can find something the correct size and insert it instead. Changing the middle will help to make yours different from the others too, personalising it.

Rosemary

[burgundyice]

This looks really pretty already, I love the idea of doing one a week for a year!
Was the English stitch on the roof of the cottage, or is that satin stitch??

The varigated threads look good too.

Louise

[Busy_B]

This looks really pretty already, I love the idea of doing one a week for a year!
Was the English stitch on the roof of the cottage, or is that satin stitch??

The roof is satin stitch. The cottage is actually the English stitch.

[SusanF]

Well done Barb this is looking great

I'm hoping to finish the gridding tonight so hopefully I'll be able to start joining in with updates very soon now. I love the little cottage, but I must admit when I read the instructions it looked very complicated.

[Rose]

That is really cute. Love the one per week idea. You are making great progress and will be excited for next weeks installment.

[agi]

Oh, I love this idea! Beautiful little pictures

I myself was thinking of doing something to experiment with different stitches.
I may joing this group if possible - not this SAL though, I have too many things to do atm, but perhaps I can save the patterns for later...

[Busy_B]

I myself was thinking of doing something to experiment with different stitches.
I may joing this group if possible - not this SAL though, I have too many things to do atm, but perhaps I can save the patterns for later...

Agi, feel free to join the group! You don't have to join in on the SAL. There are several who are saving the patterns to use for cards and other things like that.

[Mabel Figworthy]

Lovely project with all those small designs -- and I like the different textures of all those different stitches!

[coffee_freak]

[Stitchingbee]

Hi all,
I'm the designer of this piece!

I'm delighted you are all enjoying it - but please do remember that it was designed exclusively for my group Friendly Stitchers, not to be shared outside of that group. I don't mind if you want to show off your stitching on blogs etc, and it's fine for you to tell people about Friendly Stitchers - but perhaps if you want to discuss this SAL, you might restrict that to Friendly Stitchers itself, and not other forums?
Thank you.

[K1nS]

Oh how lovely

[Busy_B]

We have been asked by the mods of the other group not to discuss this SAL on other forums. They would like to keep the conversations on their group in order to help increase the chatting. They want to stress that they are not a free pattern site, which is not how I view it at all! So, I will be honoring their request and not posting pics of my weekly update here. I will keep my photo album updated (in signature) with the progress of this one. I'm sorry everyone here had to be put in the middle of all of this!

[Slinky]

Hi all,
I'm the designer of this piece!

Well, if nothing else, the above post answers the question of whether designers visit this forum!!

Evidently they do!

[Busy_B]

Hi all,
I'm the designer of this piece!

Well, if nothing else, the above post answers the question of whether designers visit this forum!!

Evidently they do!

The designer is one of the mods of the other group.

[crazycat]

its a shame we wont get to see your progress

[Busy_B]

its a shame we wont get to see your progress

I'll update the pics in my album (link in signature) so you can still check that occassionally to see it. I just won't be discussing it in a thread.

[RosemaryH]

Very understandable that they want to keep it in their own forum. If the site is talked about on other forums though it may increase their membership which surely would be a good thing. Great to see that the forum is enabling people to learn new skills too.

Rosemary