Making a DIY Sampler

Fans of DebBee's Designs (and all other stitchers, even those who never work from charts) will enjoy reading about how Debbie Rowley turned a great little stitch dictionary into a sampler to learn needlepoint before she became a famous designer.
https://debbeesdesigns.com/2019/11/06/uncovered-treasures/

Sadly, I think she little book she used has been long out of print, but you can use any of your needlepoint stitch dictionaries to try what Debbie did.

Debbie's also showing off more wonderful resources for learning stitches.
https://debbeesdesigns.com/2019/11/08/more-uncovered-treasures/

AND the stitch card files are still available!  These are sized slightly differently than the ones Debbie has.  Now they are sized to be inserted in protector sheets.  Two will fit in one sheet.
https://www.margaretlee.com/notebooks

https://www.etsy.com/shop/MargaretLeeNeedleArt?section_id=21356600

Margaret herself sent me the PDF files she sells now to try out and report on to Blog's readers.  I got a PDF file that is the cover page information and table of contents, then another file for the "Reversible Stitches 1" set.  The cover page tells you things are sized to fit in Junior page protectors (which are 5 1/2 inches by 8 1/2 inches) and binders.  They print out with two stitches per page, one upright and one upside down.  You can of course put them in regular 8 1/2 x 11 inch page protectors or cut them in half and put in the junior ones.  There is a big empty space where you can staple or glue your stitch sample. I'd staple them onto the page myself since I got the reversible stitches set and you want to see the back.

A Page from "Reversible Stitches 1"

I grabbed a sheet at random from the set I printed out on 8 1/2 x 11 paper to show you.  The diagrams are clear, numbered and in gray scale.   This set shows a diagram for both the front and back of the ground cloth, which is important for reversible stitches.  That means they are easy for colorblind folks to follow.  If you have problems with small print, though, you probably want to experiment with printing these out larger so you only have one per page to enlarge the numbers and text.  Margaret suggests that you stitch your samples on Aida cloth but I think scrap needlepoint canvas would work just fine.  There's room for perhaps a two inch tall, inch and a half wide, piece of ground fabric to be attached to the diagram if you are printing the two stitches on an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of typing paper.

This is a fun resource for creating your own stitch samples, especially since many of the stitches are geared toward counted thread stitchers so they are not the usual stitches needlepointers use.

If you want to keep up with Margaret Lee and her stitch cards and other innovative products, follow her Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/MargaretLeeDesigns/

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
© Copyright November 6, 2019 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.