Monday, November 21, 2016

A Fully Finished Object and a New Start

It's been a very busy week, as my lack of posts likely indicates. I have managed to fully finish Rejoice Tree after discarding several methods of finishing and sort of making up my own. 

Instead of a cube finish, I ended up using a large piece of styrofoam and I kind of made up my own finish. I didn't find a good sized ribbon to use, and since I had purchased stainless steel pins, I decided I liked how it looked all pinned up. 

What do you think?


close up of the pins

Thank you for all your comments on my decision regarding Vermont and At Our House for my co-worker. As most of you mentioned, cross stitching is about something we enjoy, and I unexpectedly received the chart just in time for Xmas, and since I had first seen it I had though of stitching it for him and his family. 

Therefore, Vermont will go back in the WIP file and I started on At Our House, even though the fabric was all wrinkled and necessitated a little washing. 

Here's the model stitch again:
My floss toss:

The colours are pretty similar, but I'm using a dark purple (WDW Taffeta) instead of brown for the lettering. I'm not a huge fan of brown in general, so I tend to change it out. 

As I said, I even made a start!

And then I decided I should be good and iron it, so I tried, and tried, and tried, and tried, and finally decided to throw it in the washer. The fabric is hand-dyed, but colour fast, so I wrapped it in a towel and washed it with a very little bit of laundry detergent. The detergent we use is free of scents, dyes, etc. 

It came out really well! I was always terrified to try this, but those creases were impossible!!!

I wish I'd taken photos, but it's flat now, and that's the important thing. I've also learned a valuable lesson in ironing first, before stitching, no matter how impatient I am. Especially if it will be a gift for someone else. :)


This is not a new photo, but I also finished the stitching around the squares on the Song of the Weather hardanger afghan! The only difference is the blank areas are filled in, so I didn't bother with another photo. 

The plan now is to use my sewing machine to do a quick stitch on the black fabric I've stitched the afghan to and keep the edge from fraying. I hope to manage that tonight and then tomorrow I can finish the edge of the afghan itself. 

To make sure I'm up to the task I practiced with my sewing machine over the weekend and I made a project bag. I loosely used The Twisted Stitcher's tutorial here. I didn't have the right size of interface to put between my fabric, so I only used fabric. I forgot to take a photo, but I had some longish fabric and I managed to make a project bag large enough to store my two scroll frames, so it works! And it was great practice. 

DH is actually a lot more comfortable with the sewing machine than I am since he took Home Ec. and I took Parenting (easy credit). He was able to teach me a lot of the finer details. 

Wish me luck and thank you for all your wonderful comments!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch

24 comments:

  1. Ah...purple, wise choice! The finish looks great!

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  2. Great finish! And he live At Our House design!!
    xxx

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  3. Congrats on the awesome finish and start Tiffany. I love the colors you chose.

    Linda

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  4. I really like your finish - nothing distracts from the tree. And a good start for your new project.

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  5. Beautiful finish, its always a great feeling getting something done, the Tree is beautiful.
    Thank-you for sharing with us.

    Blessings
    Catherine

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  6. That's a lovely finish!! Your new start is very sweet:)
    It seems the framers use some kind of spray to ease out the wrinkles. I saw once on a framing tutorial video.
    Good luck with your sewing! Do share your fabric bag, would love to see it.

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  7. Great finish, great progress, and I love the colours you pulled for At out House!

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    1. Thank you! I'm looking forward to seeing them all stitched. :)

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  8. Great job on the cube finish for the beautiful tree :)
    Glad you've decided to go ahead with the lovely LK design. Your choice of floss colours is great & you've made a nice start.

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  9. Nice job on your finish, and the afghan is looking great. Isn't that WDW Taffeta pretty? One of my WIPs uses that color. Your LK will look great!

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    1. Thank you! It is a beautiful colour. I've been waiting for the right project. This is definitely it.

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  10. Love your Rejoice finish! Great new LK start.

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  11. I love your finish on Rejoice Tree, it's simple and stylish and lets the stitching be the focus.
    Glad to see you have started the lovely LK design too and have chosen some gorgeous bright colours.

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  12. Nice work on the Rejoice Tree and of course purple is a better choice than brown for the lettering!
    Can you really study Parenting as an option at school? Here they just go ahead and have the baby then learn on the job. But my town is Teen Pregnancy capital of the county!

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  13. I love the finishing that you used for the Rejoice Tree, it looks really good. And you made a great start on your new project.

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  14. Great finishing on your tree!
    I agree... purple any day :o) Looking forward to seeing it all stitched up
    Hugs xx

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  15. Great holiday tree finish and a cute start on your Lizzie Kate piece. I love your Song of the Weather afghan! Looks like it was a lot of work, but well worth it.

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  16. Great cube finish, its a lovely gift.
    I do prefer your purple lettering, it looks a lot prettier than the brown.

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  17. Great stitching. Love "Rejoice".

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  18. I love your finishing on Rejoice. It looks perfect. Great floss toss on the new piece. Looks great so far.

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  19. mi piace tanto come l'hai finito!!

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  20. What a lovely finish and pretty colours for your next project. Love the hardanger piece, it is going to be stunning.

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  21. Great finish, Tiffany and a wonderful new start. Those creases can be really pesky, can't they? Glad that the washing worked out okay.

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Thanks for any comments!

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