Sunshine!, and Friendship Samplers

So a week of gray days was catching up to me. I didn't have anything planned to post for today, I'm just forging ahead with HSTS.

When I got to work, a friend had thought about me and had brought some sunshine in a vase. Thank you so much!



The sun even came out this morning, so things are looking up.

While admiring my flowers, I noticed my friendship samplers hanging behind them, and started to wonder if I have ever talked about them here. I was not able to find a post about them, so here goes.

In 1997 the Needle Artisans of NW Indiana (also known as NANI, an EGA guild) where I am a charter member, decided to set up groups of people to stitch on friendship samplers. The Great Lakes Region of the EGA also offered friendship sampler groups, and being young and foolish, I joined both groups. Each month you would receive a package from another member in your group with her sampler, with themes, perhaps some fibers, and notes from everyone who had worked on the sampler up to then.

I thought a band sampler would be nice, and my theme was "seasons" based on the verses in Ecclesiastes 3. As you can see, they turned out beautiful! The one on the left was stitched by my local guild members, and covers Summer and Winter. The one on the right was done by the regional group, and covers Spring and Fall.



I was blown away by how beautiful they are and how they matched! With absolutely no contact between the two groups, there is a similar band of rhodes butterflies on each of them, and thanks to the final stitcher Carol, they ended up the same length.

I did the over 1 stitching of the verses, both in the middle, and between the bands.





I didn't get much else stitched that year besides the friendship samplers I was working on. When a package arrived, you would read the owner's requests, look at what else had been stitched on it, find a pattern that would fit theme and colors, and get it stitched. I did that for 2 samplers a month... for each of the people who stitched on mine. It is no wonder that I have not participated in another round since then. It was worth it though!

I also have to remember that dark winter is a season as well, and will soon pass. It is easier with an occasional sunny day, though.