Friday, January 23, 2015

Hand carved sampler frame

    It has been a very busy start for this new year. After Christmas  (I survived!) I got swamped with orders for stitched and framed motto samplers and I am almost done with those orders. In between all of those I have managed to start on a new sampler pattern and also a new hand carved frame. I have a beautiful antique frame that I used for my Welcome Spring sampler if you remember. Here is the picture again.
I have been carving the Adirondack frames for my motto samplers for 9 years and I wanted another large frame for my Youth's Flowery Season Sampler I did last year. My son made the frame for me. It is a little larger than a standard 16 x 20 frame (stitched it on 32ct and should have been 36 and it would have fit) so I got out the carving tools and I am half done with the frame. Here is a progress picture of the fancy top part

I hope to have it finished this weekend as I am anxious to see it stained. I am also doing drawings of the next frame I want to do with a slightly different design of my own. Will I sell these? Not sure yet. They take almost a week to carve so I don't know...they may be too expensive for most people. If I had just the frame to carve it wouldn't take so long but I have to keep stopping to do ebay orders and other things....and these arthritic hands can only do so much. I would love to do wood carving full time if I had the hands for it. I guess I should have started carving 40 years ago!

I hope all of you are enjoying new projects this year.....I love to hear from you so drop me a line or two  when you have the time.
                                                 Nancy