Saturday, February 7, 2009

It's been a long time...


I have finished a number of things recently but I have been lazy about taking the pictures...finally got around to it! First up is "Percy Pig", a Mill Hill kit designed by Jim Shore. I did this for my mom, who loves all things Piggy. It does not show up in the picture but the piece is heavily beaded. It was a lot of fun and pretty easy to do. Until I got to the beading I could take it along and work on it on the bus or at Tae Kwon Do. The problems began once the stitching and beading was complete. First, I had booched the centering so I ended up having to trim it (it should have fit perfect in the frame also made by Mill Hill). Then I decided to
kind of "mat" it on a small piece of Weeks Dye Wool that I had. Hey, did you know that you shouldn't use glue on perforated paper? Yeah? Well I was completely dopey and did and well, it wasn't good. LUCKILY, the lovely Debra Hall had sent me a little bucket of buttons in the Christmas exchange so I used a couple heart buttons to cover up the worst spots.

I also framed the Mets piece finally but will probably have to re-do it. I am not 100% pleased with the frame. We shall see.



Next up is Medieval Angel Stocking #1 by Mary Beale. When I ordered the chart I already knew I would not make it into a stocking. I just thought it was too pretty to store away most of the year. The Lugana fabric is a one-of-a-kind from Enchanted Fabrics and I did away with the background color that had been charted to highlight the fabric a bit. I also had to extend the castle walls on the right side down a bit so it was less of an obvious boot shape. And finally to give a little more balance I decided to add some text to the left hand side. I chose the word, Caritas, Latin for Charity. Here is a picture from Mary Beale's web site of the original design:


And last but certainly not least, I finished Mansfield Park by The Sampler Girl. It has actually been quite some time since I finished it but then I stored it away for safe-keeping and kept forgetting to take pics! I am really glad I went with the blue fabric, which is brighter than the gray-ish it appears in the pictures. It is such a lovely lovely design...I cannot wait until I frame this and put it up. I may first attempt to make a wall hanging with it. I have bought a couple pretty fabrics that complement it and I am really looking for an excuse to get a sewing machine!