SYHO

Colleen’s Stitch-A-Long Mis-Stitch

Ok so I promised I would tell this story, so here it goes. In 2005, my stitching group decided to start our first SAL. I was pretty excited especially since I had never joined a SAL before and I LOVED the design we chose. I was pregnant with my 2nd child that year and I realized quickly that the hour + trip to stitch with my girlfriends was going to be put on hold for a few months. I was sick in the beginning of my pregnancy, exhausted in the middle and WAY too big at the end to do the drive.

I felt so alone without my girls, my group of stitching buddies. The only thing that got me thru those long 9 months was that I knew we were all stitching the same piece. The design we chose was a Moire Blackburn Sampler entitled Three Things. Now this sampler is HUGE and I NEVER would have taken the leap to stitch it on my own, but I had the girls. Joining the SAL made me brave and determined to finish it before Gracie arrived. We would e-mail (this was before we found Yahoo Groups, Facebook and Twitter) our progress, trash talk about who would finish first and share our frogging woes. It was fabulous. I so enjoyed staying connected with everyone even though I wasn’t actually at stitching each week.

Three Things Sampler

The months went by and as my belly grew, my piece progressed nicely. I found it easier to take the sampler motif by motif. This way I wasn’t getting overwhelmed by the size of the entire piece but rather celebrating each small section as it was completed. Gracie’s due date was quickly approaching and I was having trouble sitting for any amount of time and stitching. I knew there was no way I was going to be done by Thanksgiving, but I stitched as much as I could when I could and hoped for the best. Thanksgiving came and went, with no baby and I continued to stitch the sampler well thru till the day before Christmas Eve. I was extremely uncomfortable but only had a small section of the bottom flower on the right hand side to finish and decided to put it away till Christmas Eve.

Little did I know, the next morning my water broke and I was admitted to the hospital. Not to worry! The sampler was packed safely in my hospital bag and I continued to stitch the small section until the piece was complete. The nurses probably thought I was crazy, especially since I was almost a month late but I was not about to have my baby without completing this sampler. It was the most impressive piece I had ever stitched and I wanted to remember stitching it during my pregnancy.

2 months later, I was able to visit our LNS during their Super Bowl Sale. I was so excited to have my piece framed and find a new project. While walking the store I stopped at the sampler section and commented to my girlfriend Loretta how fabulous it felt to have completed such a large piece (pointing to the sampler). With a puzzled look on her face and a giggle, she stood, pointed to Moira Blackburn’s Time and Season Sampler and said, "Colleen, this is the sampler the group stitched, you did the wrong sampler.”

Time and Season Sampler

Can you believe it? All that time I was e-mailing about flowers and birds and alphabets and none of us realized we were stitching different samplers. How funny is that!? I decided to purchase the Time and Season Sampler and hold it till I was ready to tackle another big sampler.

One year later I learned I was expecting my third child (Emma, now 2) and after I called everyone with the news I ran right into my craft room and found the sampler I would stitch during that pregnancy...not to worry, this time, the sampler was finished a month ahead of schedule…..but the nurses were a bit disappointed when I showed up in the delivery room empty handed.