Catching Up

 When last heard from, our intrepid stitcher was nearly finished with her rendition of the AotH chart for February . . .

LHC stands for Leander Howard Cothren.  He was my grandfather on my mother's side and I only remember "meeting" him one time.  They lived in Colorado and we lived in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.  He was a farmer and by all accounts, a good man.  I've decided that my AotH will be a tribute to my heritage and that I want to mostly recognize women in my lineage.  Women who might well have worked samplers much like this one, in their lifetimes.  Howard was added because he had one thing unique to February - he was born on Valentine's Day.  I thought it worked.  In the lower portion you see the name Adda Warner.  She was my great grandmother - Howard's mother in law (oddly enough).  And she was a stitcher!  Well, maybe not a stitcher per se, but she WAS a sew-er.  My mother looked a lot like her grandmother - and I look a lot like my mother.  What's even better, my mother always spoke well of her grandmother. 

Originally Addie was from Circleville, Ohio, but her parents moved the family to Shelbyville, Illinois when she was four.  She married Robert Henry in Shelbyville in 1890 (at the ripe old age of 23!).  In 1898, after eight years of marriage and 3 children, Robert and Addie moved on to Colorado Springs, Colorado.  Robert worked with his hands - was an inventor and carpenter.  While in Colorado Springs, he built several houses, the north wing of the Antlers Hotel,  and is responsible for creating much of the woodwork inside the county courthouse now used as the Pioneer Museum.   Work must have dried up for Robert between recessions; in 1901 he was working on a bridge gang.  After that he went into farming in Pueblo and Rocky Ford where three more children would be born.  Robert just wasn't a good farmer.  As happens in marriages, things break down over time - over money - and in May of 1922, Addie and Robert were divorced.  She went as far west as she could; ended up in Seattle, Washington where she became a house mother to a fraternity at the University of Washington.  I have several quilts made by Addie; also a postage stamp quilted pillowcase.  My mother used to talk about the dresses her grandmother would make for her and her sister out of feed sacks.  So, I know she was a sew-er.  We really would have enjoyed each other, I think.  Addie was born in 1867 and died in February of 1949.

I made quite a few modifications to the February chart to accommodate Addie and Howard; I think it stayed within the spirit of the design though.

Next I did two more sections of Christmas Rules - took me about two and a half days to get those done.

I also worked on something that I'll have a post about tomorrow.  For the last two days of February I'll have been working on The Chase sampler.  Sandra Green (no blog) was kind enough to hear my plea for help in the directions category for that sampler.  She took pictures of her directions pages and emailed them to me.  Actually I did pretty good figuring out the colors.  Knowing what stitches I need to look up in my Red Book, to use is going to be helpful as well.  Thanks so much Sandra!  Here's a picture of her beautiful finished sampler -

Isn't it gorgeous?  Hope you enjoyed!