As promised...

A picture of the surprise I've been talking about. I made it for my DF Jean's "big" birthday this year. She turned one of those numbers that's supposed to be a milestone. I thought it was deserving of something special. Take note of that everyone. I'm too slow to make things like this for every year and for each of my friends. The whole reason she got this has to do with the motif in the lower right corner, and if you'd been on the receiving end of the phone call I got this afternoon when she received her package you would have heard something along these lines... "IT'S GOT A WEINER DOG!!!!!" Couldn't resist when I saw it. For informational purposes, this is a reproduction of a piece in Germany. The original, I believe, is part of Lorraine Mootz's collection. I do know that it uses motifs from the very popular Sanjou albums, since Lorraine had copies of several in her own collection to show us. I took the class with her July 8th where she gave us the pattern and spoke to us about the Sanjou albums and how young women would use them to create these samplers. (On a side note, Lorraine works at a museum in Germany and you can see all the wonderful samplers they have here.)Mine is stitched with a red NPI. I did personalize it with both my initials and Jeans as well as the year. I'm not sure you can see it in the pictures as I used a fiber almost the same color as the fabric.

I also made this...
For those who've never seen one, it's a project roll and I used this one to protect Jean's sampler during shipping. Now Jean can use it to hold a project while she's working on it. They are a wonderful little invention and we have our DF Judy to thank for the first ones our "group" received.
Here it is all together with the sampler safely inside.

So, now you've seen the surprise. Kind of anti-climactic huh?