craftgrrl | No Soliciting / Family Buttons

Hello, all! I'm new to this community, but I have to say that I'm enjoying browsing the archives.

First, a bit of back story. I've a polite "No Soliciting" sign by my front door for years now, but it doesn't keep people from ringing my doorbell. I understand that a lot of soliciting jobs are based on commission. Even so, what person in their right mind thinks that someone who explicitly states that they don't want to listen to a sales spiel will actually buy a product/sign up for a service? Perhaps my new sign will get the point across:

The wording for this sign was inspired by two Dooce posts from back when her daughter was first born. My brother, who usually couldn't care less about anything crafty, asked me if I'd make him another one of these for his front door. Maybe if I make him stitch it up himself he'll actually get into cross-stitching, but somehow I think that if I did the sign would never get finished. Or perhaps even started.

Right now I'm working on something a little less risqué. It's a design called Family Buttons, and when it's finished it should look something like this. The pattern is from page 66 of Stitching Pretty: 101 Lovely Cross-Stitch Projects to Make by Better Homes and Gardens. It's hard to tell from the picture, but it reads as follows:

Family Buttons
A button here from Grandma's gown
Worn on her wedding day;
Another from mine, a pearl one,
Precious as words can say.
That one is from my husband's shirt,
A blue one, I recall.
And those are from the baby's things,
That's why they are so small.
There's buttons here from children's clothes
Discarded through the years.
Buttons recalling happy times,
And some recalling tears.
Counting the different buttons
Sewn here around my rhyme
I see they form a history
Of a family --
MINE.

I'm stitching this design 2-over-2 on 28-count DMC linen colour 739. I plan to make it as a gift for my mother-in-law, and the buttons will come from Oma's (her recently-departed mother's) box of buttons that I inherited.

I've changed the wording from "Grandma" to "Oma" and from "there's buttons here from children's clothes" to "there are buttons here from children's clothes", and I've done all of the lettering. Now I just have to finish all of the actual cross-stitch!

(x-posted to