Sailing Home

Sailing Home is one of two birth samplers by Blackbird Designs. It is copyright 2003 and long out of print. With another great-grandchild on the way, I decided to stitch it.

I selected a piece of 16ct Olympia aida by Mystic Fabrics and Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe floss Periwinkle for the blue. Also used the called for Gentle Arts Brandy and Cidermill Brown and DMC 822.

Now I need to order the perfect frame for it.

Looking through my stash, I had two 8×10 frames that might work. Both had deep enough rabbets so that the glass, spacers, stitched piece and backing would fit nicely. I decided to add the baby’s weight and length at birth to make the sampler better fit in the standard size frame. One frame was an ornate black frame and one a simple white one.

While I like the look of both of them, I thought I could improve on the final piece. So, I got out my bottles of acrylic paint. I chose Deep Midnight Blue and Silver Marlin. I painted the white frame with the Deep Midnight Blue first, and then a watered-down version of Silver Marlin. I am much happier with this sampler now.

Now to package it up and get it in the mail to the proud parents.

A couple of months ago I was roaming around Michaels, and they had some pads of paper on sale cheap, so I bought one. Who knows what I would do with it. Well today I found a use for it as I framed the baby sampler. I normally cover the back with brown kraft paper and spritz it with water but the pad I bought had a couple of sheets of the perfect blue. So, I added double-sided tape to the edges of the frame, placed it on the sheet of paper and trimmed it to fit. I added the hardware and a label for the back. The color of the paper perfectly matches the frame.