Needlework, Finishing, Designing, Quilting, Some Discoveries and Adventures in Stitching from Windy Ridge Designs

Sunday, August 7, 2011

August Update for AotH

Spent the week stitching away on the August block of Anniversaries of the Heart.  Had a lot of disappointments with regard to conversions.  My block doesn't look anything like the one on the cover of the chart.  I first pulled all the DMC colors the chart called for and then matched them with Weeks overdyed colors.  How it could have gone so wrong, I don't know.  I have a feeling that a lot of conversions are subjective.

At any rate, here it is:


In a pale pink/melon, I have stitched my female ancestor for this month:  Sarah Ann Bullock Young.  Sarah was born November 27, 1814.  She was married to Rufus Putnam Young in 1839, according to an old family bible.  They lived in both Kent and Newscastle Counties, Delaware as well as Cecil County, Maryland.  They were my Second Great Grandparents on my father's mother's side.  Sarah's name is done really pale because I don't know much about her.  It's almost as if she's completely fading from memory.

Sarah died in Whiteleysburg, Kent County, Delaware, in 1893.  So why did I put her in August?  Well, that's when I met her - so to speak.

We were up in Wilmington one August, several years ago and I'd found out that many of that branch of the family were buried at the Lombardy Cemetery.  I'd asked my husband if we could stop by so I could get the information off their tombstones.  When we finally did find the Lombardy Cemetery, it was SO disappointing.  It had apparently fallen out of perpetual care some time previously.  We walked the entire cemetery reading the stones.  Finally, in a section I found those stones that are down in the ground; I had to pull the grass up that had grown over the them to see whose they were.  They were the Youngs.  

Fortunately, the weekend before we'd been helping a friend with gardening work and just happened to have the tools still in the trunk of the car.  I pulled them out and went to work weeding.  I was very lucky to find them and get all the information off them.  It helped me to flesh out a part of my family tree that had been hanging leafless.  There were, however, a lot of Bullocks in Wilmington and I have yet to make a connection regarding Sarah - with them.  This fall we're going to go up to Wilmington to see Winterthur and visit the Delaware Historical Society in Wilmington so I can do a little research.  I haven't given up.  Finally, my husband's initials are on the pot for the sunflowers.  He's celebrating his birthday this month!  Hope you enjoyed.



4 comments:

  1. I think your block looks lovely.)
    I like also how you put all the fabrics together. What colors of linen did you use?

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  2. I like your blog and I love any stories about family history.

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  3. Another lovely block, I think your colour conversions are just fine.
    I often find with BBD designs my finished piece looks nothing like the cover picture, even when using the recommended threads, maybe its something to do with the way they photograph them?

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  4. Beautiful! I love how you made the connection via thread with what you know about Sarah, etc. It makes me sad to think that we had these family members who lived and loved and are gone. In some cases, we don't know their names. It's sad that they're often forgotten with time.

    My block was also very different from the picture on the chart. If I recall correctly, it was charted for Little House Brown, and my skeins of LHB are very brown, whereas the color on the chart looks like a pretty maroonish color. I ended up swapping out the threads. I wish I'd done that for the name and so on but didn't think about it until I got far enough in that I didn't want to rip. Anyway, congrats on another block down!

    Happy birthday to your husband!

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