Thrifty Creativity – “A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart.”

Many things can be translated into charts for samplers—drawings from a child’s coloring book, photographs from a magazine, a fabric print, needlepoint charts, greeting card designs. The personalized sampler shown above is an invitation for a boy named Richard to visit his grandparents; the elements could be modified to make such a sampler appeal to [...]

Using gingham or dotted swiss as a background fabric lets a beginner count checks or dots instead of counting threads when she makes a sampler. And embroidery hoops made of colorful plastic or natural wood can be used as frames when the embroidery is done. For these reasons, hoop-framed sampler pictures done on either fabric [...]