Three more finishing projects..1 completed 2 in the works

I posted on Facebook last week that I had finished stitching my Debbie Stiehler Timeless Tomato and what was the consensus that I needed to block it before I finished it? Overwhelmingly was no, I did not need to block. It was stitched on a frame and it is a 3D piece…so I am not blocking it and it jumps to the top of the ready for sewing finishing.

But I have found that many of the pieces I want to finish are not just sew and go pieces and are going to require a bit of thinking and pre-work before actual finishing will take place.

For example I have the perfect buttons for my Timeless Tomato, but they are not the right color. So I colored them with my Copic marker and that means the buttons have to dry and then be sprayed with a sealer…better safe than sorry. So I have colored the buttons, waiting for them to dry and then I will spray with a sealer to set and more drying time. Okay so I haven’t begun to sew the tomato together but when I do I want everything ready to go.

I also want to make a box out of another piece of needlework, I’m going today to look for a box but I think I will have to make the box. I have this idea in my head, I can see the finished box. But this project will require some research and study, not to mention design time. My problem is I want it finished yesterday and I don’t have a lot of patience waiting…I’m thinking finishing is going to teach me to slow down. I’ll keep you posted.

Are you getting the picture? I have these ideas in my head on how most of my the needlework pieces should be finished and now rather than slapping a piece of fabric on the back and moving on to the next…I have some pre-work to complete before I can begin the finishing. Hopefully I will not get overwhelmed by all these ideas and can keep on track to finish my needlework.

But again with all these cool ideas brings up the subject of needlework finishing costs…Lets use the buttons as an example. The package of buttons cost me $3, the Copic marker was $8, and the Krylon was $3.  I had most of this from other projects, but if I were a professional  finisher I would have to add these to the cost of finishing. Remember even though I have a package of 25 buttons I may never use them for anything else. Of course if I were a finisher, I might have found plain green buttons that I didn’t need to do all this work (I’ll look today for a button that will work, but now I have this idea in my head so I am going to look for a special button that will be as cute as the ones I want to use)…but I might still have left overs and that’s how stash starts…and I have enough stash for several people.

Also the difference between a finisher and an innovative finisher is the one who thinks outside the box. She makes your needlework unique and you want to use her again and again. Like I said, my friend Patty said her favorite finishing pieces were the ones that she got to think outside the box and make her finishing complement the needlework while making that piece uniquely its own piece.

And in the meantime, I stitched and finished another piece. Last week-end was a bar-be-que contest my husband and 3 sons enter, so I needed something to occupy my time. They set up Friday afternoon, and then friends stoped by Friday evening and we artied, Saturday was the contest part and so most of the day was spent sitting around while the boys   (middle son, Hugh) cooked and youngest son (Edward) ran the entries to judging. More friends stopped by and of course we had food and libations.  My job was to socialize and keeping the boys and husband informed as to who was coming our way…I always wonder if the boys would know me if they didn’t see me regularly. So I needlepointed this little tukey. I originally thought I was going to finish it as a scissor fob but then I remembered I had this small box from Romancing the Past (http://romancingthepast-lowery.com/finds/small-treasure-boxes/); it’s walnut over black. And I just had to add the Diagonal Gobelin around to make the turkey fit. So….

Piece of batting cut 1/4 inch smaller

 

 

 

Mitered the corners

 

 

 

Turned in the sides

 

Placed in box and

 

 

 

Voila…finished needlepoint! 

We didn’t win anything at the bar-be-que this year, but we still had a good time. How can you beat good friends stopping by and staying most of the day, good food and a finished needlepoint to boot.

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you find time to stitch today! ttfn…sue

Another finish- Debbie Stiehler Tomato stitched

Hooray, hooray, the Tomato is stitched! I’d like to say finished but it is just stitched.

When you are stitching a project do the last stitches seem to take forever? When I got to segment 5 I didn’t think I was ever going to finish stitching the segment…and then I had forgotten the leaves and strawberry. That took me another week. I think if I’d remembered the strawberry I would have carried it as my take-a long project…although it is congress cloth and I might have needed my mag eyes for this.

I’ve read the instructions for the cording and I’m not sure I understand, so I may do my own cording….I’m also at a quandary as to whether or not to block…It is straight already and it is not being framed? Any thoughts on this; do you always block needlework?

Now I’m off to work on more finishing, my blocking board is full and I also need to pull a long term project and also a take-a-long project and threads for my new ideas…

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you find time to stitch today! ttfn…sue

Timeless Tomato Progress

Debbie Steihler’s Timeless Tomato is progressing nicely…makes me want to keep stitching all the time But I do have other commitments and my tomato will just have to wait for when the girls get together to stitch , graze and gab.  I only stitch on this at stitch-ins and where I can have my stand up. It requires laying threads and there is a ribbon which I prefer to lay front AND back. Just finishing one segment and all the grid  for the other segments makes a world of difference. I did get some serious stitching completed during my doggie sitting week, I can see this piece being finished…someday.

Before

Now

 

But now it is time to get back to finishing…The finishing basket has re-emerged, so next week I will be back to finishing…bottoms, stuffing and tops are next.

And speaking of finishing, I will also be finishing up instructions for you ladies that are going to ANG National in Chicago. Enjoy your week and if you are a blogger…look forward to hearing from you as you stitch the week away.

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you find time to stitch today! ttfn…sue

Hiding out is such fun

Every year my niece asks me if I would like to house-sit and dog-sit, Frankie & Joey? And every year I say yes…Who wouldn’t, this is like a vacation in the city.
The whole house to me (and two loveable puppies) and nature right out my back door. I’m 5 minutes from good food too (don’t even have to cook.)
But I found a fruit and vegetable stand and have been eating fresh tomatoes and
peaches like there is no tomorrow…and every morning I have coffee to this…  

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the first day I was here a doe brought by her babies to visit. I have seen twins before but this doe has triplets; it was like she knew this was going to be my special week and she wanted to start it off right…she checked out the area while the babes stayed back and then she brought them up for me to see. I was so excited my pictures are blurry but you can see all three. What away to start my house sitting. And so far it has been perfect I have read three books in four days, even managed to needlepoint and watch nature out the windows. And this week the weather has been cool enough to sit on the deck and do all the above…too perfect!.

I decided to start my needlepoint lighthouse journey with Anne’s Portland Head, ME lighthouse since I have the same box she used to finish the piece (this might be a quick finish) I know that Anne is a master at needle blending skies and I wanted to try this method, so I spent the better part of  a day last week researching her blog (http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/) for sky stitching and lucky for anyone interested I kept a record… Here are her hints on needleblending skies (or at least the ones I read): http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/01/needle-blending-sky.html http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/07/blue-skies-over-long-island.html http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/09/needle-blending-again.html http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/11/skys-my-limit.html http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2010/02/sky-above-water-below.html http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2011/07/taking-it-from-top.html http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2011/08/cloudless-sky.html http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2012/02/sky-and-water.html http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2013/07/two-skies-side-by-side.html

And here are other skies Anne used: Sunrise at the lighthouse: http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2010/07/sunrise-over-fenwick-island.html

Need a gloomy Sky: http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/10/needle-blending-gloomy-sky.html

Night Sky anyone: http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2010/04/looking-at-lighthouse-in-different.html

Don’t forget the moon reflection: http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2010/04/in-for-penny-in-for-pound.html

Want to do fog? Anne has covered that too, not once but twice: http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/06/fog-rolls-in.html.. http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2011/10/another-foggy-sky.html

April 2009 has several and two of the lighthouses are mine what luck. April 15 has the Portland Head lighthouse…A limitless sky (http://thecapestitcher.blogspot.com/2009/04/limitless-sky.html)

Hummmm, I bet I could add clouds to mine too… Well,  my clouds were not easy for me! The one on the leftI did without an outline, just stitched it, but it was frustrating to me so I took the picture I had printed off and drew lines around Anne’s clouds and then with my blue Pilot sc-uf pen, I drew clouds on my canvas (isn’t there a song about this?) I stitched them all using lightest value of the blues flosses I had chosen (DMC 3756).

Time to start the sky: I used three other DMC flosses (A:3325 B:3841 C:775) and needle blended as follows:

4 ply color A

3 ply color A and 1 ply color B

2 ply color A and 2 ply color B

1 ply color A and 3 ply color

B 4 ply color

B 3 ply color B and 1 ply color C

2 ply color B and 2 ply color

C 1 ply color B and 3 ply color

C 4 ply color C

That was the easy part, then I counted the rows of sky and divided by the number of color choices I had; see my marks on the side of the canvas. I started at the top with the darkest of the blends 4 ply color A. You can see in the picture I even added some random stitches in the next area and left some random stitches in the first are so the next color blended better. I was going along just fine until I got to the bottom.  I think I am counting challenge; either that or I am so relaxed I lost all sense of
where and what I am doing…I vote for the relaxed.  Somewhere in the last three areas I got off and needed to adapt. Anyway, the needle blending is so subtle that you can barely tell I did it until you look at the whole picture. In fact it was hard to get a picture to show you. I even took a picture of the back, I think you can see it better.

 

 

 

 

I am going to enjoy the last couple days of my retreat …I hope momma doe brings her babes back for another look…triplets are so rare.

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you have time to stitch today! ttfn…sue

And a word from my stitching…

I joined the ANG CyberWorkshops for Michelle Roberts’ Ukrainian Eggs class. I received my instruction book a few weeks ago; the other supplies I already had, so I am ready to go. I spent one evening reading the instruction book (Michelle’s instructions are so good). I even have several of the Ukrainian Egg books in her bibliography that I have dug out. I am probably going to have to put this project out of sight…I want to start it now…looks like such fun. And lately we have been testing the web connection, so I’m really getting excited now.

I am also stitching on Debbie Stiehler’s Tomato but it is not a project I can take in the car…need a stand to stitch…going to have to find a small project to stitch for my to-go piece. Debbie has retired from active teaching, but if you were ever privileged to take a class from her, you know what fun she is. I love this piece and have put all the base lines in so now it’s just a matter of stitching along. I can tell some patterns are more difficult than others but that is the beauty of a Debbie Steihler piece…she keeps you on your toes (or I should say fingers).

And then I got a great surprise, the answer to my “to-go piece” prayers…

Who in their right mind is going to tell their DH that they can’t buy canvas(es) when he says I would like to have a some lighthouses to go with our ship pictures, why don’t you stitch me some. Oh a collection in the making, I love it. I sent him to ABS Designs (http://www.absdesignsonline.com/) and he picked out about 30 he liked! Now this is roll-reversal, but I made him look again and be reasonable to start…he picked out three he liked and I added a fourth. I kept a list of the others and let’s just say his birthday, anniversary; Christmas and Father’s Day are taken care of for the rest of his and my life. Lucky I also have a grandson that will like these someday too.

And then he was looking through my current issue of Needlepoint Now (http://www.needlepointnow.com/) and I heard him chuckle…and he said this is a funny canvas, you need to order this. Since I already ordered it from Wellesley Needlepoint (http://www.wellesleyneedlepoint.com/)   (months ago); it arrive a couple days after he said something. He thinks we have a great delivery turnaround time; “That didn’t take long, did it” …when the opportunity opens you don’t have to tell me to twice to keep my mouth shut. Yep, we girls are fast.

Of course now his mantra is, “I don’t want to hear you say you have nothing to stitch.” Glad he doesn’t look at my office and closet very closely.

I’m off to choose my new stitching project threads…don’t want DH to think I am not doing my part to start his new collection…and I did say I needed a something small to stitch.

Oh more finishing, I need to get caught up so I can send this stuff to someone else…maybe I can interest my daughter –in –law into finishing…she likes to sew. She makes American Girl doll clothes and sells them on Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/alldolldup). If she has the patience to do doll clothes maybe she’d like needlepoint finishing…hum-m-m.

And it will be a couple weeks before I get back to finishing, I am taking a break to house and dog sit at my niece’s house…This is my favorite week of the year, nature and stitching and no cooking if I chose not to do so. Just me, and my stitching…DH is there too, but he comes and goes…cooks too. I’ll take pictures, it is so tranquil and peaceful.

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you have time to stitch today! ttfn…sue