Very Exciting News!!!!

Susanah Rayment was selected by The Attic Needlework of Mesa, Arizona as the sampler of the month.  What an honor to have one of my samplers selected.  As well as my other samplers featured in their newsletter.  I love school girl samplers and Susanah is definitely a special one to me.  She was the first "real" sampler I purchased, first one I reproduced and one of my first releases.  I love the history behind samplers, researching, hoping to find the real story behind the stitcher responsible for the sampler.   The fact young ladies actually stitched them around the same time I originally learned is not lost on me either. 

I was taught cross-stitch by a neighbor I was a mother's helper one summer for.  I was intrigued by the little ornaments she was making.  When the baby napped she worked on a set of Hummel children Christmas ornaments.  I would watch and ask her a ton of questions (anyone who knows me is not surprised by the ton of questions - some things never change).  Finally, she asked me if I wanted to learn.  Looking back not sure if she really was sure she wanted to teach me or if she thought maybe, if she is busy, she will quit asking all of these questions.  She gave me some fabric, hoop, floss and one of her books to borrow.  Once she explained to me how to make my first x - I was addicted.  I can remember making my mom take me to every craft store around to find charts, fabric and floss (may be why she was so glad I finally had my license) and to this day I still search them out whenever I travel somewhere.

I have many of my early projects and periodically I will come across them in my stitching collection.  I will look at them, shake my head, and wonder what in the world I was thinking.  I can assure you 150 years from now anyone who stumbled across the efforts of my infant hands would wonder the same thing.

The quality of my ten year old hands may be extremely different from the young ladies a couple of centuries ago, but there is one common theme between us both that transcends time - our love of bringing fabric and thread together to pass our time away.