A New WIP - Long Overdue

My youngest daughter is 8 1/2 years old. She likes to remind me that her birthday is coming up "soon" and she'll be 9. She especially loves to remind me of her age when she looks on the wall in her bedroom and does not see a birth sampler that Mama made hanging there like both of her sisters have.

Well, I started to rectify that tonight. I haven't gotten very far, but it's very difficult to find the time to stitch when I'm back to work full time in order to get ready for the new school year, AND the lovely State Department of Ed has required yet another requirement before I can renew my teaching credential. Ugh!  But even with such a busy schedule, here's what I was able to get done:

If you look in the upper right corner of this blog, you can see a picture of my current WIP which will give you an idea of what I'm doing and where I'm at.

This is not only 8 1/2 years overdue for me to make, but the worst part is that I was just about done with it one time previous. I had difficult pregnancies which required copious amounts of bedrest. I had nothing but time on my hands, so each of the girls' birth samplers were done before they were actually born. I just had to stitch their name and information afterwards.  Unfortunately, after my youngest was born, their father really lost his mind. Sadly, I wish I could blame his actions on a mental disorder, but his meanness just went out of control. Part of my attempts to placate him and keep our family together was to put all of my stitching away, and I never finished her piece.  A couple of years later, I took the girls and left (yes, sadly, I did say a couple of years later). 

When I was finally able to get some of my possessions from the house, I found her Birth Sampler torn to shreds in a bag. Since he was right there, I asked him what he had done to his daughter's present, and he took some of the larger pieces that he had left and shredded them further in front of all of us.  

It took me time to rebuild my stash, and to get the desire to cross-stitch back. Luckily, I found my joy in it again fairly quickly, but getting the ability to have a stash took a lot of time.  I have since completely overcompensated for my original loss, and now I have more to stitch than years left on my life. Additionally, I was able to track down the actual Birth Sampler that I had started, and my youngest is completely excited to see it taking shape AND she's excited that "Daddy didn't kill it after all." (My girls refer to him by his first name, and my current husband is their "Daddy" to them now, but I still used the D-word to keep anonymity anyway.)

So, it is a bit more cathartic than I thought it would be. I was worried that maybe I should have chosen a different pattern to separate the thoughts and feelings, but this definitely seems to have been the far better choice.

I will also add that going back to a kit has not been easy!  I have been spoiled working on hand-dyed evenweaves and specialty flosses for a while. Even regular DMC floss is nicer to work with than the floss included with the kit, but I'm sure it will be great when I can hang her framed piece up for her!