Blue House Sampler Completed

This is a project that I have had a lot of fun with.

It all started with me very quickly tracing off a few stitcheries to take with me to the Isle of Man back in late May and early June.  I made a start while sitting in a church yard beside the race course.  I didn’t get a great deal stitched while over there and then gradually added a few stitches now and then once we returned home.

I finally completed the stitching earlier this month and initially planned to simply add a two inch border of blue fabric, as per the original pattern by Gail Pan.

However, for some reason I can’t remember, I decided that it would be a bit boring and started to wonder what else I could do with the stitchery.  Maybe a bag, or what about a more detailed mini quilt to hang in my sewing room?  That’s when I made a huge mess on the dining table, pulling out vintage trims, laces, various fabrics and had a general play.

At the end of that day I had this vague idea.

The size would be determined by the vintage coat hanger I wished to use as the hanger.  This has been waiting for the right project for many years.

Over the next few days I gradually added bits and pieces, just making it up as I went along. 

Let’s have a bit of a look to see what I used. Firstly, I added the fabric borders.  The floral fabric on the left is one I have had for many years, probably since the 90s, and I just use little bits every now and then.  Initially, I was going keep everything blue, except for the front door, but once I added this fabric it seemed to set the colour scheme for the project.  The stripe at the top is a scrap from my Blue Quilt.  It is actually joined from two pieces and I didn’t do the best stripe match, but decided to leave it.   The large blue piece of fabric is from and end of bolt I purchased for next to nothing at Spotlight shortly after I started quilting, so in the early 2000s.  It has been included in many of my projects over the years and has been so very versatile.

The linen that the sampler is worked on is an offcut from the Vintage Linens Quilt that I made a few years ago.  It even had a hand stitched hem at the bottom, which I left in place.  The pale green huckaback with the white crochet lace edging is the offcut from a hand towel, also used in that quilt.  The final offcut from the vintage linens quilt is the narrow crochet lace across the bottom of the sampler.  It only had about an eighth of an inch beyond the crochet, so I carefully hand stitched it to the linen hem and then did a stitch in the ditch by machine to secure it to the huckaback.  The ric rac is blue and white, which is rather unusual and was found in my stash of bits and pieces.

Decisions, decisions.  At this point I did add the two lace flowers to hide the ends of the narrow lace,  There were just the two flowers and a bit of a stem joining them, so they were perfect.  You can also see that I had added some decorative blanket stitch to the right of the flowers.

I had two pieces of this sweet lace edging and wanted to use one.  I thought it would go OK here, but that tape at the top didn’t look too good.

Maybe cover it with some little hexies?  Nah, it still doesn’t really cover it.

Then I remembered some trims made with a very fine silk ribbon.  There was a green one that may work.  It didn’t, the colour was too grassy green, but there was a very narrow trim with pink flowers.  That did work.  

I kept fiddling and decided that this would be my final layout. 

I thought I would attache the little fabric scraps at the top with decorative stitching, but it didn’t look very good at all, so was removed.  Simple running stitch was all that was required.

Once I had all the trims attached, other than the buttons, it was time to think about quilting it.  I knew I didn’t want a binding, as I wanted to have the lace edging on the bottom.  What to use for a backing?  I have a few vintage damask serviettes, so I selected one of those, opting for the one with the least distinct pattern and the thinnest fabric, as I was going to hand quilt it.  For the batting, I joined a couple of little off cuts.  Here it is, stitched on three sides, ready to trim and turn right side out.

Now it’s starting to take shape.  Thread basted and ready to turn under the bottom hem and then do the quilting and add the buttons.

This really has been a project of using whatever bits and pieces I had to hand, even down to some sewing cotton that has been hanging around for years to thread baste and using scraps of crochet cotton to do the quilting.  The blue was used around the stitchery and the cream for everything else.  The cream one came to me from one of my stitching friends when she was sorting out her mother’s craft supplies.  It’s nice to use it.

Not quite “Ta Da”, but nearly there.  That top right hand corner neeeded something, both to fill the space and to anchor it more for hanging.  But what?  Some boro quilting,  more buttons?  I needed to think on it for a day or so.  I thought about adding a small quote, but everything I came across was too long or I wasn’t fussed.  I didn’t want “Home sweet home” or “Home is where the heart is”.  

In the end I just stitched “Home” and a couple of hearts, taking elements from the sampler and added a border.  It is probably a bit larger than I would have liked, but I wasn’t going to redo it.  If I come up with something better, it won’t take much to remove it.  I also found a little pink bejewelled heart charm, so added that as well.

So, here it is.  Ta Da!

And the back.

Let’s have a little closer look at some of it.  You can kind of see the sweet little floral trim I added to the lace. The tiny hexies were made a year or so ago from scraps from my Splendid Sampler 2 quilt and have just been loose in a little baggie.  I still have a few more and plenty of more scraps.  The hexy flower was made at the same time.  The buttons are just ones I found in my button stash.  The two little blue buttons were just the right colour, so had to be included.

In addition to what I have already shown in the bottom section, the floral braid came from Mum’s stash.  She has some lovely laces and trims.  The buckle was in my bits and bobs.  I seem to collect old buckles.  The “JM” is French laundry tape.  A lady in France used to blog and she was selling it, so I treated myself.  

So, there you have it.  My little stitchery, traced off with no plan, just something to stitch, has ended up having a life of its own and giving me a lot of fun along the way. Added to that, it has even ended up being a sustainable sewing project.  

Fortunately, there was still one spot where I could hang it in my sewing room.  It suits the room rather well.