I’ve told this story before… but it’s been deleted in the Great Blog Purge… My Teresa Wentzler addiction has existed since about 1990, when I first laid eyes on a stitching chart featuring a dragon posing over a castle. I was 15 and at either the Ben Franklin craft store in West Park Plaza or Hancock Fabrics in Billings, Montana, where I grew up. I’d started stitching four years before and only finished two small bookmarks, but this piece just grabbed me. It was the first stitching piece that I knew I absolutely needed to stitch. And so I bought the chart. In the next couple weeks with allowance money I got the fabric (Aida!!!), all of the floss, bobbins, and bobbin box… and off I went. I didn’t know blended threads were supposed to be intimidating, or that even Wentzlers were supposed to be intimidating. I just loved the pattern. It’s just X’s right? A whole ton of them. Oh – and some weird fractional stitches. And a crapload of backstitching. But no big deal. It’ll be the same idea as those little Dale Burdett bookmarks I did, just on a bigger scale… right?
(this is where 2020s me says… “Oh Measi… you sweet summer child…”)
It took me the better part of 16 years to finish The Castle – with stops and starts for moves to college, accidental packing it in a storage facility for a while, etc. But it was finished. And it finally was framed last year. It’s all about the journey, right? 🙂
Well… that was just the start of the insanity.
The second Wentzler I ever fell in love with was Egyptian Sampler. And that’s this week’s feature for May’s WIPGO picks.
One of the other fascinations I’ve had since childhood is ancient Egypt. Mummies, pyramids, the deities (Blessed Bastet and Sekhmet, watch over me…) all of the carvings and painted reliefs… I loved all of it. Even today, if there’s a National Geographic or Smithsonian special on ancient Egypt on the TV? I’ll watch it. The complexity of the society, the technological advances for the age – I find it absolutely amazing.
When the Egyptian Sampler came out in 2001, I purchased the pattern when I first laid eyes on it. I knew I wanted to stitch it. At the time, though, I didn’t know that it was okay to have more than one project going. And of course, I still had The Castle in progress. At that point it was still pretty far from being done. So the chart was put away for “someday.” And it quietly sat.
Fast forward a couple years. I’ve met and moved in with Erich. I decide to do my first ever trip to Plymouth, Massachusetts because I have this strange invention called a car for the first time since I moved to New England. There’s a cross stitch shop in Plymouth called the Sampler Needlework, and I’ve wanted to check it out for years – but had no way of getting there until now.
When I went to the shop, they had bolts of linen. (it comes on bolts?!?) One of the linens was a gorgeous antiqued/aged style that looked like some old scroll that had come out of a tomb. I knew immediately it was perfect for Egyptian Sampler. This was before I knew what a floss toss was – I knew it just had to be the one. The shop owner helped measure and cut the fabric for me.
On that trip I also purchased my copy of I Love New England, BTW. It was a very fruitful trip for big projects!
And now the pattern and the fabric were collected together in a poly envelope. Where it continued to sit – because I still hadn’t learned it was okay to have multiple projects going.
Finally, in 2005, I started it. I got through the center large cartouche motifs. And then it stalled due to the backstitching, and then having Max… and the rest of the stuff that stalled so much of my stitching for years.
BUT… it’s now moving pretty well within my rotations. I’m beginning to work a lot more of the framing to help me feel like a ton more is done – and that’s getting my energy up to moving forward on it. Like so many projects, the interest waxes and wanes. It’s waxing right now.
My goal for this year is to finish the top half of the border and get the backstitching done on that center motif and the scarab above it. I have a lot of work to do – but it is a doable goal. I’ll probably have this as my focus in October to really make progress on it!
Like any of my Wentzlers, these are journey pieces. I have no timeframe to get them done, but will enjoy the stitch and enjoy the finish. Once this gets done, it will be absolutely stunning on the wall – whenever that happens to be.