By now most of you have probably seen some market release buzz from different designers. I get so excited each year to discover new things by my favorites that I simply must have. 🙂

Here are the releases I've got coming out in Nashville in just a couple of weeks!

Nantucket Girl's Sampler… this design was inspired by the book "The Heart of the Sea" by Nathaniel Philbrick. In it, he relays the dramatic events that took place in 1821 when the Essex was rammed by a sperm whale, and what the survivors went through to live to tell the story. (These events inspired Herman Melville to write Moby Dick.)

I love stories of the ocean – especially true ones – and when I read the excerpt from Eliza Brock's diary in Mr. Philbrick's book, I knew it must be stitched into a sampler. What a clever little song it is! (Although Mike wasn't convinced it was after reading the last stanza.)

In case you're having difficulty making out the verse, here it is:

Then I'll haste to wed a sailor
and send him off to sea,
For a life of independence
is the pleasant life for me.

But every now and then
I shall like to see his face,
For it always seems to me
to beam with manly grace.

With his brow so nobly open
and his dark and kindly eye,
Oh my heart beats fondly towards him
whenever he is nigh.

But when he says, "Goodbye, my love,
I'm off across the sea,"
First I'll cry for his departure,
then laugh because I'm free.

By the way, the verse and the rest of the sampler is stitched over 2 linen threads, except for a few places of long-stitches.

Next up are the new friends of Olga, Boris, Sergei, Max, and Zoya. Meet part of Viktor & Irina.. I say "a part of" because I don't have the official photo yet, as the frame is on order. If you've seen Viktor & Irina in its entirety, you've only seen the scratch photo of it  (I needed to get a photo out quickly for the shop newsletters)…

Thank you to Nicole Neville for stitching the model in about 11 minutes! And thank you to Katrina Devine for her neverending supply of names for me. 😉

As soon as the frame is in, I'll show the "real" photo to you all. Thank you for your patience!

Lastly, I've been working on a new line from Plum Street Samplers called Plum Street Antiques. I'm so very, very excited about this! With the gentle shove from my good friend Tany Brockmeyer of The Scarlett House, I purchased Peggy Shorrock's sweet little sampler and immediately got to work reproducing it. Paula Sibbald of Kelmscott designs did a perfect job of stitching the model, and I'm so in love with the blues and browns in it! And of course, the ships and ladies with their walking sticks and their little hooligans. 😉

(The scissors are there for scale.)

Here is Peggy'as original sampler, stitched 210 years ago!

And here is the reproduction!

I hope you like my new releases, and that you find lots of others that you like too! Market time is always so much fun, and I'm going to have to make room for all the new goodies – the charts, the linens, the fibers and accessories… so exciting!

Now… I'm wondering if my family will ever try to figure out what the message in the bottle says…