Thursday 18 February 2010

Mary went back to school!

On Saturday, and today, I danced the biggest Happy Dance of the year so far. Why?

Well, on Saturday we travelled over to Doncaster for a model railway exhibition at Doncaster racecourse. We had booked an overnight stay at the Holiday Inn and it was there that I put the final stitches in to Mary Wigham (Happy Dance Number 1). Now Doncaster is not that far away from Ackworth and the Ackworth School were Mary Wigham was a pupil. So, on Sunday morning we went there.


Mary was then put away until today when I finished her. As mentioned in a previous post I had made a serious error when positioning this piece on the fabric. After seeing some work finished by hemstitching on Carol R's blog I decided that I was going to finish Mary in this way. Carol kindly emailed me the instructions. She is, however, in the process of producing a tutorial on this subject. I had just enough material to sew it. This was my first ever attempt at hemstitching. It took me about an hour to set the work up, putting the threads etc and over an hour to stitch each of the sides, hence Happy Dance Number 2. Here she is finished.


For the record this was stitched on 32ct Lambswool linen using Caron Wildflowers, Blueberry. For the finishing I used Gutermann thread, colour 169, a perfect match.

I have had really mixed feeling about this piece. I'm glad that I have been a part of this worldwide SAL and that it has raised a lot of money to preserve the real Mary Wigham sampler but will I be doing another Quaker this big in future, probably not. Although I have enjoyed stitching it, I have not looked forward to the stitching day on the rotation. Don't ask me why because I cannot put my finger on it.

So what else have I done this week? From Doncaster we moved on to stay with friends for a few days. Here I was able to finish the stitching on Scaredy Sheep from Shepherd's Bush. Here is the front.


Here is the back.


I also made progress on the Hootzi Humbug.


I hope everyone has a great weekend.

11 comments:

grannyanne said...

Great work. Looking forward to seeing Hootzi finished.

Justflo said...

MW looks great. Glad you got her finished. Like your Hootzi Humbug.

Looks like you had a good weekend away and yet you still got all the stitching done. Wow.


Happy stitching to you.

valerie said...

Congrats on finishing your Mary Wigham! Love the picture at the Ackworth School...you should send it into Jacqueline! I am still on Part 1.

Lesleyanne said...

Congratulations on your happy dance.

Karen said...

What a great finish and such a neat picture to remember finishing your piece. Love it finished with the hemstitching...very nice.

Love the SB...these designs are just too cute!

Annie Bee said...

Great work on your finish and I love the pic of you with it outside Ackworth School.

Carolyn NC said...

Wow - awesome job - great stitching!

Jules said...

What a great experience to have stitched a piece and be able to stand on the site holding the piece up! If you ever did a design of that style again, I would suggest doing it not as a SAL. Maybe you would have a different view/appreciation for the design.

Great job on all of your pieces. And that Ackworth is definitely an inspiration!

LisaG said...

Jen, Mary Wigham is stunning. Well done on such a lovely finish. Scaredy Sheep is really cute.

Juels said...

Congratulations on finishing ary Wigham!

Jennifer H said...

What a great finish!

I've been following your blog for some time and just now opened an account on blogger to be able to post comments.

I can't get over how fast you are! HOW on earth do you do it?