Family,  Holidays

Winter Sampler Exchange 2013

January 5, 2014

Finally! I just got around to uploading the photos I took all the way back in late November from the annual sampler exchange Mom and I do. Things were a little more hurried this year than in years past.. we pretty much blew past and tossed each other our samplers in jubilant exchange before I was back in the car, hurrying back to Plum Street in Cruella DeVille-esque mode. It was a very busy season for both of us.

Last year we didn't open our boxes from Jill until we were together, but when I called Mom to see if she had time for me to run over, she said, "Yes! Hurry! I can't wait for you to see your piece!!! Jill did an outstanding job!!"

"Wait. You opened the box?" I asked.

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"Yes!" She gleefully replied. "I couldn't stand to wait another minute!"

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So after I hung up, I went ahead and opened the box from Jill, wrapped it in some sort of pretend wrapping paper, and headed over to Chez Mom.

We both agreed to scale back this year on what we were stitching for each other because of time constraints. (That was her idea, so I went ahead and tossed the almost-finished Ann Medd Sampler I had been stitching for her for several months and opted for something much smaller.)

(I'm only kidding.)

Getting our picture proved to be very tough because we both kept laughing at how awful they were turning out. As soon as I'd get one that I'd think was passable, she'd see it and exclaim, "My hair! Oh no, my hair! What happened??"

And that's when I'd look at the photo again, and notice suddenly that I'd forgotten to do anything with my hair.

For now, I'll bypass showing our photo, and just get straight to the point: what we stitched for each other.

I was so thrilled with what my mom chose to do for me, especially because it's one I had never seen before! I love love love it! Thank you again, Mom. 🙂 It's perfect!

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My mom found out from The Primitive Hare that this isn't an exact reproduction, but rather several parts of different antiques, all brought together to form this beautiful sampler. It's wonderful, and I love the soft browns and blues, which Jill brought out beautifully in the moulding!

Here is what I did for Mom:

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This is a chart that is no longer in print, but if you do happen to have the chart, you'll notice I left off the "Elizabeth Whipp" portion from the top, and stitched my initials instead. I chose it for Mom because I just felt like it was so her, especially with the deer motif in the center. And again, Jill's taste in frames is outstanding. I couldn't be happier with it!

As for our photo together, we settled on one that we thought was decent enough…

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…It was Mom who realized the glaring problem. (I was still marveling at our hair.)

So we hurriedly turned our samplers around before the timer on the camera clicked off, and called it good.

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 I hope if ayone else out there exchanged stitched pieces with someone, you had just as much fun as we did, even if we did manage to get the whole event done in 7 1/2 minutes! We've decided that for next year, we'll have a theme: Christmas! And I think I've already got Mom's chosen… 🙂

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