Sampler House

I am working away at 'Going to Market' - I've made some nice progress on the background. For all that I find half-cross stitch annoying, working with the negative space is fun!


In the meantime, I did this, for my January Bride's Tree ornament:



'Sampler House' by Pam Miller. It was a freebie for Rainbow Gallery um... um... a couple of years ago.

I had fun with it - it's barely 2 1/2 inches square. The 'flower bushes' were supposed to be all French knots, but I recently learned to do Colonial knots and I wanted to try them out. So the green 'bush' knots are Colonial, and the 'flowers' are triple-wrapped French knots. I wanted them to stand out more. I think it worked. I'm quite happy with it, especially since the pattern wasn't marked for the knots; they have to be done sort of free-hand and that's not my strongest talent. But I like the results.
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The only thing I didn't like was doing the lazy-daisies on the roof. I usually have no trouble with those, but not this time! They kept tangling or pulling tight. Argh! So they're not perfect, but I'm happy enough with them to call it done.