Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘finishing’

Wonderland Cube-it

Posted in Needlework, tagged on February 25, 2010| 1 Comment »

ImageJust a quick post, because I really should be in bed right now, to show you my latest finish.  The design is “Wonderland” by Trilogy.  This one took me a couple nights to complete.  It’s the first time I’ve finished something into a cube-it (or box standup as some call it) so there was some figuring out I needed to do.  The trickiest part for me is the darn bow.  My cousin once laughed at me and said that for someone so creative and crafty, I couldn’t tie a decent bow.  I have trouble with these ruffle type because their irregular and I keep futzing with them, trying to get them perfect….but they don’t look right unless they’re all disheveled.  I’m thinking of adding feet to the bottom….maybe white wooden balls.   Hmmm, will have to think about that some more.

Okay, off to bed now.

Read Full Post »

A Patchwork Garden Pincushion Ball

Posted in Classes, Cross Stitch, Needlework, tagged on February 22, 2010| 7 Comments »

Happy dance!  Tonight I finished “A Patchwork Garden Pincushion Ball” by Twisted Oaks Designs.  Here are a few pictures of the finished piece:

ImageImageImageImage

The lighting in my room isn’t very good at night.  I’ll have to take some more pictures during the day and post those on my album.

I changed up the finishing a bit from what was outlined in the pattern.  I won’t be teaching my EGA group how to assemble theirs until August.  So to prevent myself from forgetting anything and to provide anyone interested in how I finished my piece, I thought I’d outline it the steps here.  So here it goes:

ImageFirst, I decided the piece needed more gold that just the brass medallion on the bottom. So, in lieu of perl cotton, I chose gold Petite Treasure Braid (#PH03). To make sure it would withstand the tight tension needed to pull the pieces together, I did a little sample of the assembly stitches in an unused corner of a piece. This also allowed me to test iron the corner to make sure it could handle a hot iron.
ImageTo my delight, both tests passed with the Treasure Braid.

So I moved along and worked the backstitches around all 18 pieces.  To make sure the backstitches wouldn’t come out when I went to assemble the pieces, I tied the two ends of the thread in a square knot, before whipping the tails back and forth through the back side of the backstitches.
ImageHere are all the completed stitches.

I want to take a quick moment to tell you how much I enjoy working with Treasure Braid.  I prefer stitching with it over Kreinik.  It it more pliable the Kreinik, so I don’t get frustrating with it when I stitch on linen.  Also, I am able to use long lengths (30″) and barely shows any wear on the thread when you get to the end.  If you haven’t used it, I really encourage you to pick some up next time your at a needlework shop.  Okay, back to the finishing.

Once I had all the backstitching done, I made a paper template of the two different shapes (a square and a kite shape). I used these templates to cut out fusible interfacing and cotton batting.
ImageSo, with my templates, I cut out interfacing (I use lightweight Pellon) for all the pieces so that it fit just inside the backstitches.

With a hot iron, I pressed the interfacing to the wrong side of the linen.  I pressed my pieces on a soft ironing pad to so I wouldn’t  crush the beads.
ImageOnce the interfacing was fused on, I cut all the pieces out using a 3/8″ seem allowance.

Then using my templates, I cut batting for all of the pieces.  Because batting is thicker than interfacing, I cut the batting a tad smaller than the interfacing.
ImageThe pattern doesn’t call for either interfacing or batting, but I find the interfacing stabilizes your pieces and prevents the poly-fil from bearding through the holes of your linen. The batting I use to wrap the seam allowance around, so they don’t create a ridge on the front of the work.  It also helps smooth out the lumps that can sometime appear when you stuff something with poly-fill.
ImageThen I finger press the seams.  I start by pressing the corners so they can be mitered.  Then I press right along the backstitching.
ImageOnce the piece is finger pressed, insert the batting and using a contrasting color of sewing thread, baste the seam allowances down.  I pierce through the batting and to the front/back.  This holds the seams down and keeps the batting in place when I stuff it later.
ImageThen with more Treasure Braid, I whip stitched the pieces together.
ImageHere’s how the bottom looked once the bottom 6 “kite” pieces were assembled.
ImageThen I added the middle squares.
ImageHere you can see it starting to take the shape of a ball.
ImageThe brass medallion that comes with the pattern is flat.  I didn’t want the bottom of my ball to be flat, so  I took my medallion to the garage and hammered it into a curve.  Then I used the Treasure braid to attach it to the bottom.  I tacked it down at each point.
ImageUsing the same DMC colors I stitched with, I made a few different color variations of cording.  It was a tough choice, but I ended up using the cord on the right.   The colors look so rich together in that particular cord.
ImageI then assembled the 6 “kite” shapes of the top and before I sewed the last piece into the first to close it all up, I inserted my cord, this a knot to keep it from slipping through.
ImageHere’s how it looked from the top before I closed it up.
ImageWith the cord attached, I then whip stitched the top to the bottom section.
ImageI stuffed the ball with poly-fill and stuffed it really tight. Closing it up was tricky. Once it was all stuffed and assembled, I removed the red basting threads and , voila, it was done!

Read Full Post »

Red Lace Needlecase

Posted in Needlework, tagged , on November 8, 2009| 1 Comment »

Today was the last meeting of the year for the Bay Area Sampler Guild. I always enjoy this meeting. It’s a wrap up for the current year and a kick off for the next. They already have the agenda for 2010 all mapped out and we have some great events and workshops coming up. Another reason I really enjoy the November meeting is most of the members bring in their show-and-tell and the pieces they brought yesterday were just amazing. It’s really motivating. Another part of the meeting is spent doing gift exchanges. One exchange members just buy little gifts, but the other exchange, the members stitch their gifts (they drew names back in January). I knew I’d have too much going on this year, so I opted out of the exchanged. But a couple of my friends gladly jumped in.

Image

front

Image

back

Image

inside

One of them stitched “Red Lace Needlecase” by Drawn Thread as her gift.  I did the finishing for her a couple weeks back and now that the exchange is over I can post about it.

If any of you are stitching this piece, you might want to consider make a couple changes to the finishing that I did.  The instructions for this piece specified using just batting, but that seemed too soft for something that would hold scissors.  If it was just a needle case, I think that would have been fine.  I added one piece of skirtex under the batting to make it firmer.  So I used the batting on the two outside pieces and skirtex on the two inside pieces .  The other change I made is to change the placement of the hinge .  The instructions on the chart had it placed at the top of the case. But I decided it would be better to place it on the left, so the scissors wouldn’t fall out of the case if it was placed on it’s side.

We had a good laugh yesterday because the person my friend stitched this for, also stitched this same piece for another member for the exchange.  Though, she had used a different color of linen and thread (purples).  She had it finished just as the instructions had stated, with the exception of beads added all around the edge of the seams (a lovely addition).  When the recipient lifted it from the wrapping, just as I had expected would happen, the scissors fell out.

Read Full Post »

A Couple WIPs and a Couple Finish

Posted in Cross Stitch, Needlework, tagged , , , on November 1, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Although I have been absent from my blog for the past few months, I haven’t been absent from stitching.  I’ve been making some good progress on a couple of my larger pieces recently.  First, “Queen Sofia”.  My last, and only, post about this project was from back in January. I had forgotten about this piece for a while until at our last EGA meeting I found out November was the deadline to get a golden needle for it, *if* it was completely stitched.  So last weekend, I pulled it out and stitched on it for the entire weekend.  Here’s how far I got:

Image

I don’t think I’ll get it all stitched by Novebmer’s meeting in a few weeks.  As I mentioned in the first post, I’ve been swapping colors in and out and I ran short of the dark purple thread that I used in the borders of all the pieces.  I sent the last little bit I had to a local shop this week to see if she can find me a match.  Keeping fingers and toes crossed that she does.

The other piece I’ve made good progress on is my “Blackstone Fantasy Garden”.   I’m continuing with my plan from March to stitch the knotwork first and then go back and fill in with the blackwork.

Image

There’s more work to this piece than I initially thought.  Do any of you have that issue….under-estimating the amount of time it will take to stitch something?  I’d think after stitching for over 15 years, that I’d be better at it 🙂

ImageImageImageImage

Now onto a couple of recent finishes. The first piece, “Flame & Queen Etui” by Thistle Threads:

The model was originally done in more pastel colors, but I decided to try something much more vibrant. I’m very happy with the way it turned out. I also omitted the cording because I thought it looked cleaner and more classy without it. Did you notice all of the queen stitches on the one panel? That side took much longer to stitch than the bargello side, but the results were worth it.

I used 32 count black linen and used NPI silks in the following colors:

Creamy Yellow Range: 132, 133, 135

Violet Range: 451, 455, 456

Azure Range: 482, 486, 489

Hot Pink Range: 682, 683, 685

Holly Green Range: 428

Black Range: 993

Image Image

And lastly, this is a scissor fob I finished for my friend Maggie.  She accidentally stitched the design over one.  It was suppose to be an ornament and when she realized it was only going to stitch up to 1″ square, she started over, stitching over two of course.  She didn’t think anything could be done with the teeny version and not wanting her efforts to go to waste, I took it from her and made this fob.  She didn’t have anything stitched for the back, so I stitched the ‘M’  to personalize it.

Read Full Post »

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started