Hannah's progress and a map sampler

First of all thank you so much for your comments and encouraging words and the doctors kept me on sick leave, which has been a blessing, because as Winter settled in, so have the pains in my chest.

Hannah Westcombe's sampler

Here is a pic of my Hannah's progress. It is not a major progress, because I had some sewing to do and began a new project.

I don't know if it happens to you too, but sometimes we need something new, like a new start to help us going out of our crisis/depressions/thoughts. Shopping used to do the same for me, but that, as for many of us, had to be cut down...

I am indeed sampler lover - I love the quaker samplers from Ackworth school, alphabet ones (like Hannah's) and always "had a thing" about the map ones.

So here I go - I'm trying to recreate a sampler map of England!

I started by searching for some map samplers and also maps of England at the time, to have an idea of how they were and what I would like to have on mine - mind you this is just a recreation, not a reproduction therefore my sampler will have modern and old elements: the map of England I traced is a modern one, but then I looked for an old compass and an antique frame for the word England.

Here is the traced map done in white card board and then passed to tracing paper. I recreated the compass and used a frame from the *The Graphics Fairy*.

I'm using Belfast linen (32ct) from Zweigert. It's the first time I'm using 32 count, but I needed a higher count so that I could have space within the county bounderies, to stitch their names. My husband and I dyed it with coffee to give not only an aged look, but also the look of a worn map that had been folded and carried around in someone's pouch.

It will take different stitches, but at the moment I'm only using the back stitch to trace all the map in the linen and used it also for the frame of the map. For sure all the wording will be in cross stitch.

I haven't decided yet what I am going to do with the border, but as you can imagine for the work ahead that is no rush.

It measures 49,5cms X 42 cms, not counting the border.

As always, I will be looking for your comments and opinions.

Have a great week.