May Hand Stitching Update

 You know me…always busy but not very good at timely blog posting. I’m hoping to do three posts the next few days to catch up on my progress in all areas. 

We spent the last week of April in Texas to attend a wedding and visit with family. I am a jeans and sweatshirt kind of gal and never wear makeup so I was a little stressed about looking appropriate for all of the events. After we arrived at the wedding I realized I had forgotten to put on my pearls. Such a bummer as it has been years since I have worn them. 

I always take perforated paper cross stitch projects to work on when traveling. I finished a little ornament on the trip, one in a series of Gnome Santa ornaments from Mill Hill.

I now have three of the six done and started playing with a new way to finish them. There is a wonderful gal on YouTube with a series of videos on how to finish cross stitch projects, Vonna Pfeiffer.  She takes three layers of backing board for mounting artwork, cut in the shape of the finished ornament and glues them together to make a sturdy piece that is almost a quarter-of-an-inch thick.

I’m still playing with the technique. I need to experiment with adding a ribbon for the hanger loop at the top. I haven’t glued the finished ornaments to the backing boards…making sure I like it all before I take that final step.

 I cut the board with scissors which was pretty easy, then glued the three pieces together. Of course all three layers were not perfectly matching…sanding fixed that problem. I painted the stack with a color that matched the perforated paper. It makes it look like a piece of wood which I like.  

Then…I thought to myself…why haven’t you worked on getting your other finished cross stitch pieces mounted and hung up for display? I have that fun series of laundry room pieces done which would hang up all year.

I started by mounting the individual pieces. This time I used double sided archival tape. 

I think lacing would have been better and I have a feeling I will redo this.

My main obstacle to finishing was finding a frame. Amazingly….I found one I love in my local store, Fred Meyer, in the frame section…a frame to display three 5x7 photos together.

Now I am waiting on a piece of sticky board to arrive that is large enough to mount all three on one backing board. The dark gray fabric behind all the pieces will be what I use to cover the backing board.

My last cross stitch piece to share is part of the 12 Days of Christmas series I plan to finish this year, 9 Ladies Dancing. Just three more to stitch.

My other nightly hand stitching pursuit, Bucilla felt kits, has been getting most of my attention. I had to finish the bag of toys to get my 3D Santa done. 

Pretty easy stitching except for the tricky doll. Her hair was so difficult when I made the stocking version so I dreaded this piece the most.

I'm pretty sure I added more strands of floss than the instructions called for but I really wanted to get good coverage on top and a little on the backside of her head. Making those tiny braids nice and even was not easy. I had her pinned to a project board but she still was a little wonky to handle.

I remember how messy the backside of the doll's head looked on the stocking kit and after years of pondering a better outcome....

the simplest solution came to mind, sew a piece of felt over it.

I'm very happy with her hairdo.

My Bucilla Patchwork Santa is now patiently awaiting the arrival of the Christmas season.

So...did I start one of my hundreds of vintage Bucilla kits? Nope!

I bought the new felt kit from Merry Stockings. They came up with a stand-up mantel village and I just had to start it.

Such a simple concept! No stuffing of individual pieces, just one piece of quilt batting between the front and back pieces with a cardboard piece also sandwiched in the layers.

The magic solution is so wonderfully simple. Wooden dowels that sit on buttons. You do not sew the bottom edge of the felt sections...this is key because I initially had it all stitched closed and it fell over. I went back and READ the directions, unstitched the area between the dowels and it then sat up straight.

Those folks at Merry Stockings released a second mantel series kit. Yes...I promptly purchased it.

The instructions are published in a color booklet format. Very Nice.

I really need to get off this computer...the sun is shining!

But I will leave you with a photo taken on May 8th. Notice this bull's antlers starting to poke out just below his ears.