Let the People Choose-April Update

Hello Friends,
First Saturday of the month I join Jo for The People's Choice SAL . Jo takes a poll for people to choose a topic for the month and the participants then post about stitchy projects related to that topic.

This month's topic is Modern Samplers. Now this is a tricky one-I had never seen a Sampler before 2014 as I don't think they existed historically in Indian Subcontinent as they did in the USA or UK.
This partially explains my disinterest in traditional samplers, however I have stitched a few modern samplers or lets say my take on modern samplers:

Birth Sampler from Anchor Design Studio

The birth sampler I stitched for my nephew in 2014 has few elements of a traditional sampler-numbers,alphabets,border,name and date .
I made this birthday card and I think it looks like a portion of band sampler. It has specialty stitches in it.

Gorgeous Gingham by Joanne Sanderson

Another birth sampler which I stitched for my niece in 2015.

Pretty in Pink by Helen Phillips

I did get a chance to see two historic samplers at Skaill House, Orkney, Scotland. Here are pictures:

As I write this post, I'm reminded that I need to make two birth samplers for my friends' babies. I better start looking in my stash for patterns !

Yay another first!!

I'm not sure if there is a word to describe the excitement of doing a thing/activity for the first time.
'firsts' always excite me...be it the first car ride,first view of the sea or first salary in new job. personally, I feel that firsts are an assurance to ourselves that life has much more to offer than we what see in our daily life.
Someone very rightly said everyday is a new learning. I try to achieve this in my professional as well as personal life.
I have already talked about my wonderful cross stitch group on fb.im always learning something  new about the art of cross stitching because of this group.
I wanted to make a personalized gift for my new born nephew since he was born and learnt about birth samplers on the group. I think they are a beautiful way to capture arrival of new baby.
here are pictures of the birth sampler I made for my nephew and the family loved it. I have made few changes to the design: I have stitched birth time instead of birth weight and changed the font to a simpler one as the original one had backstitching(I'm still not good at BS).

Started on : 5-Sep -2014
Finished on: 22-Oct -2014
Stitched on:14 count white Aida
Floss used :Anchor
Designer: Anchor design studio
Pattern source: Cross stitch collection, Sept 2014
Number of colors: 19
Stitch count:214H*144W
Type of stitches: Full cross stitch, back stitch, half stitch, french knot
Number of strands used :2 for Full cross stitches,1 for back stitch,3/2/1 for half stitch

I used the loop method to start the thread for the first time....thank you Pat Carson for the tip.
I also serged the fabric to prevent fraying.

This is my first birth sampler for the first member of new generation of my family :) .The cherry on the cake is..the only French knot in the design was made by my MIL..