She's finished! or Mary goes back to school!

On Saturday, whilst staying at the Holiday Inn in Doncaster I put the final stitches into Mary Wigham. Ackworth is not that far away from Doncaster, so on Sunday morning we went there.


I finished her off today by hemstitching all round. This was my first attempt at hemstitching. It took about an hour to set it up and over an hour to stitch each of the sides.


As a result of a counting error, probably caused by altering so many of the motifs, I was unable to fit in the two half flower motifs on the upper to mid right hand side. I also chose not to add the initials but I did put in my own with the date. So for the record this was done on 32 ct lambswool linen with Caron Wildflowers Blueberry. I used Gutermann colour 169, an perfect match, for the finishing.

Good luck to the rest of you out there with this project.

Update, as promised

Following my comment on Hazel's post yesterday here is my progress so far.


Each motif takes, on average, a day. I think I have about six days left on this. I am not putting in all the initials. I may put in the alphabet in upper and lower case if I can find a chart. Does anyone know where I can find one?

Putting in the borders of the internal medallions was in an attempt to kid myself that I really was further on than I was.

Another update

Here is Mary Wigham so far. I don't know how much more time I will be able to spend on her before Christmas but in the New Year I intend to get this finished ASAP.

The sides are finished

This weekend I finished the sides. Here is the latest progress pic.

More progress

Here is my latest progress pic.

Another Sunday's worth of stitching

Another progress pic. Hopefully next weekend I should get on to the final side.

Mary turns a corner

Having missed a couple of Sundays because of being on holiday, it was nice to pick up Mary again yesterday. I am now going along the bottom. I still need to decide what to do about the initials, I will probably miss them out all together or put the alphabet in their place. Someone else has done the alphabet (photo some where on Needleprint's blog) and it looked quite good.

Mary takes a break

This is my progress so far. The Blue Lagoon has now been replaced and a couple more medallions completed. I am now off on holiday for a few weeks so Mary will have to take a break as she is too big to take with me.

Mary in Llangollen ....

... Where Wales welcomes the world!

This weekend, as most weekends, Mary went to Llangollen in North Wales. However this weekend was different as it was the Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod.

In the spirit of this truly international SAL I decided to take a picture of Mary sitting on a bench on Platform 2 of Llangollen Station. In the background is the bridge which has been given the title 'one of the wonders of the Welsh world' with flags from other nations flying from it.


This is what she looks like after her international weekend.


Not as much progress as I would have liked but I have now removed and re stitched the medallion done in 'Blue Lagoon' which I think is a big improvement.

I think the 'Blue Lagoon' has got to go!

Here is my progress so far.


I had a scary moment with Mary last weekend which you can read about on my main blog here.

Having stitched some more I think I will be frogging the medallion done in Blue Lagoon. I might still use that colour for some of the flowers, I don't know yet. Just out of interest the floss I am using, Caron Wildflowers, comes in 33 metre skeins, you cannot split the floss. Now I'm really stingy with my orts but I have just started my second skein!

Further progress

Here is Mary after stitching yesterday. I managed to complete two motifs. I have corrected the motifs to make them symmetrical whilst trying to stick as close as possible to the real thing.

I'm not so sure about this!

In my last progress post I mentioned that I was stitching Mary in Caron Wildflowers, Blueberry. Thinking that this might be too dark I ordered two other colours in the same range. They were Azure Skies and Blue Lagoon. I have stitched most of the top left motif in Blue Lagoon. Now, I like the colour, but the colour changes are not very subtle and I do not know if it 'looks right'. So, I'm not going to finish this motif just yet but stitch the next one in the Blueberry and see how I feel.

I have enjoyed stitching this despite my reservations about the colour. Here it is so far.

An interesting observation

Whilst in blogland this morning I came upon this post by stitch-creations. It was through her blog that I found out about this SAL. It is about errors in the chart. On closer inspection I found one on the top left motif but have not investigated further. My initial thoughts are that I will do what she is doing and make the motifs symetrical as I am not making a replica of the original sampler as I am using different colours. What do other people think?

I've started!

When I came home last night, from a weekend away, my parcel from Sew and So had arrived! So, whilst the final of The Apprentice was on I made a start. Here it is.



I have chosen the suggested 32 ct Permin lambswool, at the moment like cardboard and Caron Wildflowers, Blueberry. The colour changes with the Blueberry are really subtle but I think you can see them on the photo. I am worried that doing the whole sampler in one colour might be too much (dark). This afternoon, having sent a 'I need help' email to one of my main blog followers who is a member of the USA version of this SAL, to see if there were any 'rules' re colours and how do you choose which motif to do in what, which, there aren't apparently, I decided to go for another colour, just in case, and rang Sew and So. I had the colours upon the screen and the nice Sew and So lady went into their 'Floss Room' and looked at the real thing to confirm if they went with the Blueberry or not. In the end I ordered two more blends but have forgotten their names!

Hope to see some progress pics from everyone else soon. Happy Stitching!

About Me

Hi, I'm Jen. I live near Preston in Lancashire.

I am so pleased to be a part of this SAL. This will be my first big Quaker. I did the pin-cube from stitch- creations and really enjoyed it. Yesterday I spent ages trying to decide what fabric and floss colour to use. In the end I opted for the 32 count lambswool and blueberry wildflowers from the Caron Collection. These are now on order from Sew and So.

My main blog is at http://speedystitcher.blogspot.com if you fancy looking at some of the other stuff I have done/am doing.