A Couple of Flat Folds

 Last month I taught a workshop to my local needlework club on how to do a flat fold finish.

I had 4 students and it went quite well, all but one had their pieces all put together except for the cording. We have started back our monthly programs and February we will be making twisted cord!

Here are two pieces I finished in the flat fold manner. The cactus has purchased cording and the heart has cord I made using two colors!

The Saguaro is from a Banar designs kit from the 1990s and the heart is from a local Littleton, Colorado needlework shop retreat. So, I do not have a lot of information on either of them other than that.

I had planned to put the Saguaro in our March expo sale, but I like it too much and I am keeping it!! But I have the chart someplace and can make another one for the sale. Maybe not for March, but there should be one or two sales in the fall. 

Della Robia Santa is a Standup!

 I decided to make Della Robia Santa into a stand up myself.  I think I did a fine job!

I used four layers of foam core, wrapping two layers with fabric and two with the stitching. I padded the stitching side. I used archival red line tape and stainless steel pins. I also cut and covered a strip of foam core to serve as the base so it would not fall over! Before I covered the base, I used my sewing machine to sew my initials and the date on the fabric since these were not on the stitched piece.

I then used redline tape and secured the front to the back and covered the seam with some red grosgrain ribbon and some fancy gold and white ribbon.

I used the two ribbons to make a flat bow and then I secured it down in the center with a fancy stitch counter I had on hand. I have a pin cushion with stitch counters I have collected from seminars, chapter events and gifts from friends. I do not really use them as stitch counters, they just add pretty to the pin cushion. I had two of these that looked like Christmas and so I used one for my Santa.

As a follow up to my last post about this Santa, I used Kreinik #4 braid in color 32 for the background. It is stitched with Father B's Background stitch.

Finally my little helper:

Happy Stitching!!

Needlework Tool Case - Finish Finished

In 2011 I volunteered to be a pilot stitcher for an upcoming Embroiderers Guild of America (EGA) Group Correspondence Course (GCC) called Needlework Tool Case (since retired) by Mary Long .

A pilot stitcher is kind of like a manuscript editor. We stitch the project with the provided instructions marking any corrections or areas unclear to us. A good pilot will also mention the good stuff about the instructions. The idea being we find any problems before it becomes a GCC.

Our instructions were to only do the stitching and then mail it to the designer for critique - just like we would if it were a GCC. We act in all cases like it is a GCC, except it has a more condensed time frame and we need to pay closer attention to the instructions, if that makes sense.

As such, I never finished finished it (finish finishing is making the stitching into it's final product - pillow, framed, etc.). For whatever reason at the time, I just did not understand what I was supposed to do to finish it. Well, I was bound and determined this past weekend to get it done. This time the instructions made total sense to me and I got it done! Go figure. 

It did take a bit of hand sewing though, so a tad time consuming. I used my sewing machine to sew on a lining. Then I had to fold the canvas edges over the lining and hand sew that down. That was followed by hand sewing down the inside with all the tool case pockets (which I could make on the machine). That was followed my hand sewing down the twisted cord I had made for the edges. Good thing it is baseball season! I love to stitch to the baseball game because it is slower paced and there is the instant replay! 

Here is the outside of the tool case. It is roughly 9 1/2" x 5 1/4". It folds into thirds.

Here is the front. I decided to make my cording the tie down with a button.

Here is the inside. Felt for needles and pins, a pocket in the center and a scissors holder (twisted cord and slots. The inside is made of Ultrasuede. Below is all that was shown in the instruction. We were told we could make other holders for the inside, but I was not sure what I might need and could have used some examples to give me some ideas. 

Happy Stitching!!

Finish Finishing in the Works

When I moved to Arizona I missed the finishing class offered by the Sampler Guild of the Rockies and taught by Linda of Chessie & Me. I did all the stitching pre-work, but our house sold and we had to head south before the finishing class.

Luckily they sent me the instructions and supplies for finishing and here they are!! I have had this in a box since June (maybe July) and now getting around to working on it.

This is the stitching attached to wool that I will attach to the "book" which I am still in the process of painting, so more later on that.

Last September I had a blog post that included information about a clover twisted cord maker I found at my local Tuesday Morning and promised to report on it when I used it. Well I used it to make cord for this project. It made a decent cord and overall it was easy enough to use.... BUT see the wheel on the sides at the top (just below and to the sides of those white knobs, sorry my cord is over the wheels a little). I had to turn the wheel manually and fully 130 times to get this cord. Not really my idea of a good time!

I need to make more cord for the needle book and will probably use this cord maker again for consistency, but the length will be shorter, so I will not have to turn the wheel as many times - instructions tell you how many turns based on the thread length.

 The cord is for a little scissor fob.

To be continued later!

Studio Re-Do & First Finish

Today I thought I’d talk about my studio. At our other house I had California Closest make me a work area. It was removable, so I had them take it down and put it back up in our new house. It fit pretty well, except the wall with windows would not hold all the cabinets, so one cabinet is not over a desk surface any more, but I put a lateral file there to prevent head bumps, and the corner shelf had to be cut down in width also to accommodate the cupboard on the window wall.

Here are pictures of the room before:

 These are the walls the system is going on to.

Here are pictures of the room after:

     Still needs a bit of organizing, but I am getting there!

Below is the system installed. You can see where the cabinet on the left is no longer over the desk space. In the other house the right corner had two cabinets, but this new house has a window in the way! It all worked out though.

Note Miss Maddie has reclaimed her "cave" spot in the corner under the desk. This was her favorite hide away at the other house and I barely had the system up before she reclaimed it!

I got it all set up and about organized – still have a little to do on that – but was able to complete my first project in the new studio. It is a 2” square ornament that was the May ANG Chapter meeting project. It was a needlepoint freebie by Jean Hilton off the Rainbow Gallery (RG) site called Rainbow Gem #1 (side note -  on the RG website the pictures for Gems#1 and #2 are switched). But if you like the one I did it is Rainbow Gem #1. If you decide to do this it was easier to do step 3 before step 2, also this was an alternative colorway the presenter of the program worked up. She gave us two other colorways besides the one on the chart and suggested the change in order of the steps. This worked out real well.

ENJOY!!