Emma Badman Wadford
This is a personal favorite - I love Emma’s garden teeming with birds and lovely floral motifs! Plus - the unique placement of her alphabets is a really nice feature. The chartpak includes details for a smaller adaptation, should you prefer to stitch something a bit smaller and focus only on the lower portion of the sampler. Other than a small number of eyelet stitches, everything is standard cross stitches.
The model is stitched using silks (see supplies below), but a suggested conversion to overdyed cottons and DMC are also included.
Stitch count:
278w x 308h
Fabric:
Access Commodities: 38 count Brewer's Malt* Legacy linen (similar to DMC 822 or 3047)
*Brewer's Malt is discontinued; suggested Legacy linen alternate is Fuller's Teazel
Threads:
AVAS/Soie d'Alger: 526, 1716, 1845, 1846, 2242 ,2521, 3424, 3425, 3433, 3445, 3726, 3742, 3834, 4122
Classic Colorworks, Belle Soie silk: Mer Bleu, Porcelain Pink, Velvet Rose, Walk the Plank
An adaptation featuring the lower portion of the original sampler.
Stitch count:
259w x 219h
Alternate Color Palette:
Classic Colorworks: Cocoa Bean, Desert Mesquite, Finley Gold, Pebble Beach, Polliwog, Roasted Chestnut, Spinach
Weeks Dye Works: Blackboard, Charlotte's Pink, Chickpea, Cranberry Ice, Deep Sea, Fathom, Holly, Hunter, Parchment, Sandcastle, Seaweed
Floss conversions are subjective and not all are close matches. Make your own color and dye lot selections with the entire color palette in mind.
Antique samplers often have quirky bits that might seem odd to us, with our concern for precise counting (some stitches over one thread, others over three threads, and most over two threads). Borders often present issues with how they line up, particularly in the corners where the stitcher was just trying to make it all work out!
Such is the case with Emma's sampler. The upper right corner is charted with a gap in the stitches; this is per the antique where she left a small space in the border pattern. If you look at the model, I filled in that space, continuing the border pattern. There is no right or wrong here - work it either way, depending on your own preference.
EMMA BADMAN WADFORD, Copyright 2023. Original counted thread designs by Linda Stolz for Erica Michaels Designs.