Introducing a UFO that is part of the Needlework rotation.
This is Permian's "Dutch Beauty". It's a reproduction of a museum piece. It was stitched in 1790 by a young girl "HVZ" who was 13 years old. She was obviously of good family as her parents could provide an entire yard of linen for her schoolgirl sampler (Stitch Count: 630 x 390, which is 96 cm (W) X 59 cm (H) or 38 X 23 in). She had access to fibers dyed in indigo, saffron(?) and cochineal, which are still vivid blue, yellow and rose in the photo of the original piece. Her other fibers (with the exception of the dark brown - possibly dyed with walnuts) have faded with time. They were probably bright colors in the original since they were used in floral motifs. I do wish we had a photo of the back of the piece where the duller colors may not be so light faded.
The linen I chose is a slightly uneven weave - 32/34 Strathaven Linen in "creame", which matches the original piece almost exactly in thread count and size.
I started this beast in 2000, thinking it was going to be a two year project, since the chart is 21 pages and I figured I would stitch about a page a month. Yeah. Not. I think it's a combination of the size and the simplicity. There are only 13 colors and several of them are dull greige tones; it's entirely plain cross stitches two threads of floss over two threads of linen. Plus it's going to take a small fortune to frame, AND I have nowhere to really show it off. So it lingers. I even sent it out a few years back (around 2008) on an 'UFO Round Robin', where the participants each sent around a lingering UFO to help get 'over the hump' on a bottleneck project. That got me solidly into the center row, at least.
Here's a photo where I am after I got back from camp. I completely lost track of how many hours have gone into this, so lets just call this rotation #2 since the Round Robin. I am close to a page finish on Page J/10 with Page N/14 also nearly completed.
This is Permian's "Dutch Beauty". It's a reproduction of a museum piece. It was stitched in 1790 by a young girl "HVZ" who was 13 years old. She was obviously of good family as her parents could provide an entire yard of linen for her schoolgirl sampler (Stitch Count: 630 x 390, which is 96 cm (W) X 59 cm (H) or 38 X 23 in). She had access to fibers dyed in indigo, saffron(?) and cochineal, which are still vivid blue, yellow and rose in the photo of the original piece. Her other fibers (with the exception of the dark brown - possibly dyed with walnuts) have faded with time. They were probably bright colors in the original since they were used in floral motifs. I do wish we had a photo of the back of the piece where the duller colors may not be so light faded.
The linen I chose is a slightly uneven weave - 32/34 Strathaven Linen in "creame", which matches the original piece almost exactly in thread count and size.
I started this beast in 2000, thinking it was going to be a two year project, since the chart is 21 pages and I figured I would stitch about a page a month. Yeah. Not. I think it's a combination of the size and the simplicity. There are only 13 colors and several of them are dull greige tones; it's entirely plain cross stitches two threads of floss over two threads of linen. Plus it's going to take a small fortune to frame, AND I have nowhere to really show it off. So it lingers. I even sent it out a few years back (around 2008) on an 'UFO Round Robin', where the participants each sent around a lingering UFO to help get 'over the hump' on a bottleneck project. That got me solidly into the center row, at least.
Here's a photo where I am after I got back from camp. I completely lost track of how many hours have gone into this, so lets just call this rotation #2 since the Round Robin. I am close to a page finish on Page J/10 with Page N/14 also nearly completed.
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