Big Berthe!

Justine and a few other bloggers are committing to stitching on the same piece throughout April and it seems I have unwittingly joined in!

Here is what Berthe looked like on 1 April, exactly the same as where I left her mid way through January:

 

And here is what she looks like now:

 

 

 

All finished!

 

 

As a side note I just have to mention every time I say Berthe I think Bertha, which reminds me of the children's TV programme in the 80s which people of a certain age will remember and then I get the little song in my head..........anyway I digress..........

 

I absolutely adored stitching this one on 40ct 1 over 2 with beautiful AVAS d'Alger.  For the sake of anyone that has visited this page as a result of searching for info on this piece, I will say that some of the lettering on mine may be in a different colour than charted - only because I was short on one colour of silk (I think it went walk about) so I just used an excess I had of another colour that was in the chart's colour palette.  Also of note is that, as is the case with a lot of repro samplers, the border is not symmetrical :).  All those cross shapes that make up the border are identical, except for one which has a "leg" four stitches long instead of three - always worth examining the chart carefully!

 

I particularly enjoyed working the pattern darning sections, and a few darning samplers have been pinned to my wishlist for a rainy day so there will definitely be more in my future!

 

 



 

 

I have at least two other Reflets de Soie samplers in my stash which I am now very much looking forward to doing.  They are the perfect project for when stitching time is limited as the colours used are minimal and you can quickly see progress being made even if only a letter or two is completed per session.  Stitching with 1 strand on 40ct makes for much faster stitching too - no railroading required!  A few years ago I'd always thought that HAEDs would be my easy stitching projects, but the thought of stitching one now makes me feel almost claustrophobic - I need my stitches to be able to breathe lol!

 

No idea what I will be working on next, I had started LHN's Home of a Needleworker last month so I might carry on with that.  Still don't think I can face Cinders just yet, so maybe an entirely new project is in order!