No Bird Soars Too High – PDF Pattern

No Bird Soars Too High could be considered a remix of an antique sampler. Sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century, an unnamed girl stitched a beautiful sampler on fine linen. The problem with the sampler was that it was both in very bad condition and slightly uneven in stitching.

Though it’s not uncommon for a sampler to be stitched rather unevenly (I hardly have any samplers in my collection that are evenly stitched!), my reasoning for remixing the sampler was that I didn’t like the verse too much. I wasn’t too keen on how it was stitched, and the words didn’t speak to me. This set me on a quest to find a saying that was related to birds, but wouldn’t be too commonly known either.

I stumbled upon William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven & Hell (1790). The book contains many fascinating and strange proverbs. I love how Blake challenges his readers, making them want to challenge what they know and what they think they know.

The verse seems extra fitting as the sampler is most likely made within the first decades after the publication of William Blake’s work.

The original text was written by the preacher, poet and hymn writer Isaac Watts – whose Joy to the World! is one of his most famous hymns.

From all that dwell below the skies
Let the Creator’s praise arise;
Let the Redeemer’s name be sung
Through ev’ry land by ev’ry tongue

I chose to chart the sampler for full crosses, so it is suitable to be worked both on linen and Aida fabric. The pattern keeper compatible file in this purchase is the full-crosses chart.

If you want to stitch the original sampler, that option is also included, as the chart has details for the satin stitch and back stitch areas, plus the over one text found on the original sampler.

TECHNICAL DETAILS

This sampler measures 157 crosses in width and 251 crosses in height. Please see the graph below for sizing estimates. You can use the bonus alphabet on page 15 to personalise and date your work.

The design has a total of 8 colours. The key recommends DMC and Roxy Floss Co colours (available through evertote.ca in Canada) and lists the amount of crosses for each colour.

Colours that have more than 1800 crosses require 2 skeins when working on 28, 32, and 36-ct linen (or 14, 16, or 18-ct Aida). If you work on 28-ct linen (14-ct Aida) I would recommend buying three skeins of Dirty Martini (DMC 3011). All other colours require less than one skein of floss.

Floss calculations are based on working with two pulled strands of 6-stranded floss on 28, 32, and 36-ct linen. One strand of floss is used on higher counts.