Beatrix Potter SAL progress and Mrs. Tiggy Winkle

Sadly, my progress is not great this week but it is Friday and time to show you what I have done this week on the sampler and share some more Beatrix Potter tidbits. As you can see, the leaf border is stitched but I am still working on the passion flower.

Excerpt from "The Tale of Beatrix Potter" by Margaret Lane:

"By this time a new book was under way, inspired by an encounter between Lucie of Newlands and Miss Potter's tame, affectionate, much travelled hedgehog, Mrs. Tiggy Winkle."

"Within a few days she was making her first drawings of Mrs. Tiggy Winkle, who did not care overmuch, apparently, for posing. 'Mrs. Tiggy as a model is comical. So long as she can go to sleep on my knee she is delighted, but if she is propped up on end for half an hour, she first begins to yawn pathetically, and then she does bite! Nevertheless she is a dear person; just like a very fat, rather stupid little dog.' There was no question of dressing up such a difficult model in the print dress, mob cap and apron which she wears in the story, so a dummy had to be constructed to serve instead. 'The hedgehog drawings are turning out very comical. I have dressed up a cotton-wool dummy figure for convenience of drawing the clothes. It is such a little figure of fun; it terrifies my rabbit; but Hunca Munca is always pulling out the stuffing. I think it should make a good book,' she added, 'when I have learnt to draw the child.' (She was well aware of her weaknes in drawing human figures and faces, and indeed Lucie, though she took infinite pains with her and used several models, is the book's only failure.)"

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On a personal note, I really think the drawings are all wonderful and this is one of my favorite stories she wrote. I think Lucie is adorable in these drawings. I have included a few in case you may not know them. See for yourself...

"Lily-white and clean, oh!
With little frills between, oh!
Smooth and hot—red rusty spot
Never here be seen, oh!"

Lucie, knocked—once—twice, and interrupted the song. A little frightened voice called out "Who's that?"
Lucie opened the door: and what do you think there was inside the hill?—a nice clean kitchen with a flagged floor and wooden beams—just like any other farm kitchen. Only the ceiling was so low that Lucie's head nearly touched it; and the pots and pans were small, and so was everything there.

"Who are you?" said Lucie. "Have you seen my pocket-handkins?"
The little person made a bob-curtsey—"Oh, yes, if you please'm; my name is Mrs. Tiggy-winkle; oh, yes if you please'm, I'm an excellent clear-starcher!" And she took something out of a clothes-basket, and spread it on the ironing-blanket.

Then Mrs. Tiggy-winkle made tea—a cup for herself and a cup for Lucie. They sat before the fire on a bench and looked sideways at one another. Mrs. Tiggy-winkle's hand, holding the tea-cup, was very very brown, and very very wrinkly with the soap-suds; and all through her gown and her cap, there were hair-pins sticking wrong end out; so that Lucie didn't like to sit too near her.