I’m on a bit of a roll at the moment, having felt last weekend that I had rather a lot of different projects on, I’ve got another finish!

A few weeks ago a friend from Skipton Stitchers (formerly Embroiderers Guild) asked if I would make a birth sampler for her, she does amazing embroidery but feels she hasn’t got the patience for cross-stitch. When her first daughter was born she had a sampler made, but as is often the case, when second daughter arrived they never quite got round to it.

She wanted a sampler which is similar but not a copy. It’s surprising how a change of colour and font changes the whole feel of the design. This was the original one…

It’s typical of it’s time, mid 1980’s. I chose eight colours, two blue ones for the writing, two pink ones, three greens and a soft gold thread. I used a simple font of the details, it’s my usual style of stitching letters as I like the clear simplistic feel.

I kept (with slight changes) the wide floral design below the alphabet, it was just too complicated to find one that fitted as well. The three lower borders however come from a sampler I stitched back in 1988…

It’s interesting to see how the colours completely changed the look of a border. The outer border is the same as the original. I felt it was very pink and decided to tone it down a little by using mid green for the zigzag line. I was quite surprised though when I added the dark green leaves that the shape of the zigzag changed completely…

This evening I’ve finished stitching the border and added two hearts and it’s complete, I’m pleased with it as I feel it still has the feel of a traditional style birth sampler but with a few more up-to-date changes. Luckily my friend loves it too.

It’s interesting to see them side by side…