Needle, Thread, Scissors, Thimble: Diary of a Revolution Sampler 3

Well two weeks into this project and it's coming along slowly. The piece is monopolising my work table and yesterday my sewing machine came back from being repaired. I know if I take the piece off the table it will never be finished so the project I was sewing when the machine stopped is the carrot for me to get the Revolution Sampler finished. I'm aiming for Easter- wishful thinking? Perhaps.

The sampler idea has changed. I realised that the spacing of 1cm between each row of stitching was too narrow for embroidery stitches. Also as the piece doesn't bend it would have been really hard work embroidering it; the needle can only go one way, either up or down. It's impossible to push it down and bring it up in one movement.

I first sewed the outlines of the lettering across the middle and worked out how best to handle everything when sewing. I tried rolling the ends onto a tube, but the tube was too heavy. I've tried rolling the work underneath but I've finally settled on having it rolled on top in front of me. The pictures explain it better.

The first two rows.

So yesterday I started on the 99 rows of stitching which represent the slogan 'We are the 99%'.

I managed to do ten and I was very pleased with myself. I very luckily inherited a quiting ruler in centimetres from my aunt who lived in The Netherlands. I never thought I would use it and here it's saved me. Eyeballing the lines is impossible so I draw each one with pencil, stitch and then rub out the pencil which is visible. At the moment they are all parallel even though some of them looked a bit like they were widening at the end. I checked and rechecked with the ruler and everything lined up. Finally my daughter took one look at them and said 'They're fine it's just that some are on yellow and the others are on white and that's what's making them look different.'

Every tenth row I've left a blank line and these are for the lines of quilting stitches.

Today it's been pouring with rain which should have been a godsend to sit down and stitch all day. But what do you do in Granada when it's raining? Either you go for chocolate and churros for breakfast or you go out and have tapas. We did the latter which isn't exactly conducive to then sitting down and stitching straight rows. However I did get a bit more done this evening and I'm planning on working away on it bit by bit during the week.