Sampler design

I thought it was about time that I gave you an update on the sampler designing I mentioned in my earlier post.  Not that there is an awful lot to report.  It has been slow, to say the least.
I'm reasonably happy with the design.  It was a bit of a fiddle copying out all the various bits I'd found to create a comprehensive (I hope) whole.  I'm really looking forward to getting our new computer so that I can start using design software for this stage.  But adapting the design of 'big brother's sampler' was quite a good way to start, I think.
The next step was choosing colours.  Now, this is when I think the design software would have been REALLY useful.  Unfortunately, I don't have silks for all the colours I've chosen so far, so it is a little difficult to tell whether or not they'll all work together yet.  At the moment, what I have looks a bit 'bitty', but once I get the 'main colours', hopefully it will all start to look a bit more like a design (rather than a a bad jigsaw!).
Sorry - no photos this time.  I'll try to include one in the next update - once I have all the silks etc - so that you can see how I'm getting on.

A sample of samplers

As I think I've mentioned, I've been embroidering for years and years.  It all started when I was about 8 and I found an old biscuit tin of my late grandmother's full of embroidery silks.  I asked my mother what they were for and she explained and showed me ... the rest as they say is history!

I've been hooked ever since.  I think the first thing I embroidered was an unfinished tray cloth of my grandmother's (she died a year before I was born and was a seamstress and milliner).  I showed it to her sister and the following Christmas I got an embroidery kit for another tray cloth from her.  I still have both of them.

I've made sampler, followed by sampler, followed by picture, then another sampler ... you get the gist.  I'm ashamed to say that most of them are kits and not my own designs.  I've been a bit reluctant and unconfident about designing my own.  I have, however, made a number of friends samplers to celebrate weddings and births (but not for my sister, as she keeps reminding me!).

And that is where you/this comes in - I hope. 

Three years ago I made my (then, soon to be) brother in law and sister in law a sampler as a wedding present.  Then my mother in law asked for one too.  And last year I made two birth samplers for my cousins' children.  So, in a way, I'm on a roll. 

Then a friend recently asked if I'd make one for her daughter as a 'pair' for the one I made her son when he was born.  Embarassingly, I'd intended to make one when her daughter was born and had even bought the materials, but never got around to it (this seems a bit of a theme in my creative life!).  So, now I've embarked on my first true commission.

I'm not going to make the sampler I'd originally chosen and bought the materials for.  Instead, I'm going to adapt the design of her brother's - so this is a step towards designing my own!