Update On My Stitching Progress

Hi, Primmies -

I hope everyone is safe and warm tonight. I stitched today on

the Polly Daggett sampler and I have some more pictures of

my progress so far. It doesn't look like I've come very far

when I look at the photos, but Mr. Glen Oaks said I've stitched

more than one third of the sampler so far. That was very

encouraging. Thanks, hunny!

So that is where I am in the sampler. After the dividing band of

X  X X 's comes Polly's name, another easy band, the numbers, another band and then the beautiful basket designs.

There will be the soft blue-greens, golds and ivory. 

The borders would have been stitched first and then the main

designs but it didn't work out for me doing it that way. I kept

coming out uneven so I'm going right to left but I'm doing the

border as part of each row. There will be more boo-boo's on

this sampler besides the ones Polly made. I hope she will

forgive me!

I'm framing this sampler but I don't think I'm going to frame

it under glass. I don't know for sure but I don't think a

colonial stitcher would have had hers under glass. I'm going

to investigate this as best I can, and if any of my readers knows

about this glass/no glass please let me know.

I would appreciate any information that you have. I do know

that most work was simply rolled up and put away in a dresser

and when they needed to refer to their sampler for stitches when

marking their family linens, they took them out. Of course they were framed, too. I imagine to show the talent of the girl who stitched it. Some samplers have survived in beautiful condition because of the fact that they were stored away, where light could not deteriorate the threads and fabric. 

We are feeling about the same, unfortunately. I do not think

that the shots have been successful. We can go for another one

in a couple of weeks. We're wearing our TENS units and I'm

getting much relief from that. They sent me a new unit that

has more settings and does deep muscle penetration. I'm just

learning the different settings so I'll hopefully find one that

works for me. I'm putting the electrode pads on my left leg

tonight and I'm hoping that I'll really get some pain relief.

I haven't eaten anything today so I should go and have

something now. 

Have a good evening everyone.

Hugs,

Susan

PROGRESS ON THE POLLY DAGGETT SAMPLER

Good Afternoon, Primmies -


Here's an update on my stitching  progress on 
the Polly Daggett sampler:

I'm not pleased with the color of the linen. But for  my first attempt at this in over 20 years I'll have to

be satisfied. 

This picture has all of the floss colors that I haven't stitched yet. They don't appear in the sampler until

the middle and the end. I'm sick of black!

I'm hoping to finish the alphabet today and start

on the pine trees. There will be a dividing band of

a rust color, her name in black (again) and then

the pretty colors. Lots of teal and light blue, cream

and yellow/gold. 

The color for the border looks nothing like the

original border. I'm supposing the true colors are

on the back of the sampler and what I'm stitching

is what they must have looked like before fading and aging.

So we have some snow and it's pretty and we didn't get too much so I'm happy. I'm having a hard time

keeping the house warm today. It's really cold

outside today. Just have to turn the heat up more.

I'm sorry to say that the spinal injection did not

help me. I think it actually made my pain worse in that I have no relief as opposed to before when I could have some pain-free time with ice packs and

medicine. Mr. Glen Oaks got relief for his problem

(one of them) and I'm happy for that. Thank good-

ness his leg pain is gone. His back is still very bad

and they are talking about doing 14 levels of spinal

injections of corticosteroids. Oh, boy - not me. I'd

be too afraid. I'm supposed to have another round or two of these injections and if they don't work I

don't know where I go from there. Probably crazy.

Stay warm and safe today.

Hugs,

Susan

PROGRESS ON THE POLLY DAGGETT SAMPLER

Hi, Primmies -

I've made some progress on the Polly Daggett Sampler. I started in the upper right corner and I'm working right to left. I'm on the third
row:

Remember that the sampler has been charted to include Polly's mistakes and changes to thread thicknesses among other things.
As I read through the chart it's becoming obvious that Polly was not interested in needlework, at least not in working on this sampler!

Polly most likely was taught to stitch by a governess or in school.

We can assume this by the fact that a child would stitch her

teacher's full name or the teacher's initials somewhere in the sampler, as Polly did. She included the letters "A" and "J" near    the bottom of her sampler. 

Polly crossed stitches whichever way she felt like it and often did half cross stitches and left threads loose and hanging. She often crossed the wrong threads in the linen.  Perhaps she was thinking about the unrest in the colonies. If Polly stitched this sampler around the age that most girls were when they worked on

them, ten years old, it would have been 1770 when she stitched this.

That was the year in Boston that  British soldiers shot into a crowd

on March 5th; this has been referred to as The Boston Massacre.

Polly was born Mary Daggett, in a town called Holmes Hole (which is now Vineyard Haven) on the island of Martha's Vineyard.

She was born in the year 1760 and Polly was an affectionate nick-

name. The people of Martha's Vineyard had erected a liberty pole

on a hill that represented to the British their independence. When a British ship named HMS Unicorn arrived in the harbor her captain spied the pole and insisted that the people deliver it to the ship the next day. They needed it as a replacement spar for the ship. An island legend tells that Polly and her friends packed gun-

powder in holes that they had carved in the pole and blew it to pieces.

Polly married at the age of 19. Her husband was Peleg Hillman, a master mariner. He was quartermaster of a privateer ship named

the Oliver Cromwell. Polly only remained married for 10 years, she

divorced Mr. Hillman and lived out the remainder of her life in

the village of Tisbury. She was known as "Aunt Polly" to the island children and much loved by them.

'Nite, Primmies -

 Susan

We Dyed Last Night

Hi, Primmies -


I received my order of 25ct. linen and threads for the
Polly Daggett sampler. Here is a photo of it stitched:

Photograph copyright Allen D. Bragdon Publishers, Inc.

This is my scan of a picture from the book of the stitched sampler. The colors in this picture are much lighter than the actual colors used by Polly. I am using DMC floss

because the colors are a truer match to the colors used by

Polly, who stitched with silk. With the exception of one or

two samplers in the book, the floss used is DMC. Two

strands of DMC are the thickness of one strand of silk. It

will be stitched over two threads with a few exceptions

where I will use three or four threads and leave a stray

thread hanging here and there as Polly did. All of her

"mistakes" are charted as in the original which is going to

make this an authentic reproduction. Tomorrow I will

give you some of Polly's background and where she lived

when she stitched her sampler, and what was going on

in the colonies during her time. Today I'm going to show

you how I prepared the linen to "age" it to match the

antique original at the Dukes County Historical Society in Martha's Vineyard, Edgartown,Massachusetts.

I used Tea #1 dye recipe from the historic samplers

book. I was supposed to use Coffee #2 recipe but it called

for the coffee to stand for four weeks and I don't have time

to wait for that. I have to get stitching! So I improvised:

Boil enough water in your kettle to half fill a large pan or

pot. Use 5 or 6 bags of any breakfast tea and allow the tea

to steep about 10 minutes

While the tea steeps wet the linen in plain water if you prefer the dye to be fairly even. If you want the dye to

take unevenly put the dry linen in the dye pot, the

uneven color that some antique samplers have

Biggie wanted to supervise this stage of wetting the linen.

This is the cat that has to drink running water from the

faucet, not the bowl. He likes the shower, too. At this point he was bored...

Squeezed out the tea bags and into the dye bath it goes

Leave the linen in the dye pot for ten minutes and then I

checked the color, trying to match the color of the original.

(Tea dyed linen is supposed to dry one shade lighter than

when wet) I like the color, I think it will be a good match to the original when dry. The next step sets the color so it will

be colorfast in case you want to wash it when you are done

stitching

add one teaspoon of alum. I had some in the spice cupboard

from when Mom used to put up crock pickles. It's in the spice aisle at the grocery store

Mr. Glen Oaks wanted to be in on this so he added the alum and stirred it into the dye bath with the fabric still in there.

Stir it up well and you can leave the linen in the dye bath for another ten minutes if you need to for a correct color match. The mister didn't think it was quite dark enough the 

first time so we went with the extra time

We decide that this is a close match so I'm drying the linen.

I rolled it up in a towel because for this sampler I don't want wrinkles and uneven color lines. Remember, I'm trying to match the original.
Save your tea dye bath because if you decide the linen should be darker you can dye it again but you need to add

another teaspoon of alum to the dye bath each time you

re-soak the linen.

. Tomorrow the fun starts!

Susan