Forging Ahead

I put the other trumpeteer on the bottom of the American Sampler and got as far up with the green Alternating Half Cross stitching on the side borders as I could before I rolled it up and out to re-expose the top of the sampler.  Above is the finished bottom.

Then I got started on the top, that was about a week and  a half ago.  I'm working on another client project - a family history - that is very interesting.  It's the first one that I will be traveling out of town to continue research on.  I'm really hoping that my hunch pays off.  More on that in a minute.  Anyhoo, my stitching time is cut in more than half.  But, I find that the Alternating Half Cross stitch is rather soothing to do.  I really thought it would kerfuffle my brain.  I got up to the top of the columns and then went for filling in the top cartouche with the beginning of the phrase.

It didn't take me long before I realized I'd not done too well drafting it.  I came down too far at the top and forgot about the loopy things on the sides at the bottom.

Here's my progress to date.  I had to rephrase (don't you wish the politicians would do that more often?  BEFORE they open their mouths?)  Originally it was "his intent to court" and it has been changed to "his wish to wed".  For one thing, I realized that if he came "courting", the father wouldn't be hurrying off to the clerk's office with him.  So, he had to be wanting to marry the girl.  Well, that worked out well, because going from COURT to WED saved me two letters.  I still had to get rid of two more in order to fit the last portion of the phrase betwenn the curliecues.  I kept going over in my head, NEED, WANT, DESIRE, no, no, nope!  Finally WISH  !!  2 letters shorter than INTENT.  And it all fit, just barely.

Don't know if you can see it too well, but I also lost my horizontal line on the third line of the verse.  I started on the left and ended up dropping down one stitch.  And of course, didn't realize it until I was almost all the way over on the right.  Well, that explained why the tail of  the G in daughter was touching the outline!  So, when I was finishing on the right, I lifted up the word WISH by one stitch so the right and left sides look symmetrical.  Then, I went back and took the G out and restitched it, one stitch up.  Also, the D in WED had been stitched too close to the M in MY.  I was going to leave it, but since I was going back and taking out some things and redoing, I decided, why not.

So, I've finished the verse.  Now I've started on the blueing of the background of the cartouche.  That shouldn't take too long.  I'm actually thinking I may finish this sampler up by the end of the week.

Yesterday I worked on the Civil War quilt.  I haven't done it in a while because I got stuck on a block.  It was made up of all these fiddly little triangles that, of course, were cut to the 16th of an inch.  I cannot tell you how much I dislike this pattern because of those 16ths of an inch!  But, Deb was right when she told me GO BIGGER.  Finally I got my head wrapped around how to handle that block . . . I made paper foundations for it.  MUCH easier that way!  Here it is -

Quadrille

Of course, it would have worked out better if I'd put the seam allowances on the foundation paper - then I wouldn't have lost the points - AGAIN!  Sheesh!

Then I had another one that was applique.  I just hated the way this one looked.  Even when I'd tarted it up some (as much as one can in this color pallette), I still didn't like it.  So, I added the balls, or grapes, or rounds - whatever you want to call them; and I like it better.

Leafy Reel

The rest were all fairly easy.

Red Cross

Rolling Stone

Barrister's Block

Temperance

Although Temperance ended up being put together with set-in seams because I just couldn't seem to figure out its construction with all those different size triangles - there were FOUR sizes!  I'd just have to wring my own neck if I had to make a whole quilt out of this block.

I have eight more blocks to go and many of them have fussy little triangles.  I expect during the week I'll be able to finish knocking them off.  Then I'll be able to get to the smaller projects that I've had on hold in my finishing bin.

The family history work I'm doing has an interesting story.  On one of the family lines, the furthest back so far is a man named Joshua Wistling _____(insert any last name)___.  He was from Dauphin County, PA (up at Harrisburg).  I was intrigued by that middle name.  And had the feeling that it was a mother's maiden name.  I did all kinds of searchs and finally came up with a listing for a Wistling family in 1830 in the same county.  But, there was only the one.  Huh.  Then one of my searches turned up Weistling, along with Wistling (in the same area) and there were a lot more listings on that name.  So my thinking is that Wistling is a mispelling of Weistling.  And I'm going to Harrisburg in the near future to see if I can flesh out the truth.  It's like a treasure hunt to me.

Hope you enjoyed!