The Girl that Stitches

Framing Flowers & Birds I hope you all had wonderful Christmas and New Year celebrations.  Happy New Year! My Parents liked “Flowers & Birds.” I can finally share pictures of it framed.  Finish, Ready for framing: First it was washed and ironed!: Birds & Flowers Framed:   The frame was modified. Originally the pattern was much more solid looking, but I brushed some white acrylic over the top to soften the effect. A second matt was cut using really thick card which had a pearlescent sheen to it. The second matt ended up having to be wider than anticipated because I stitched out to a template but didn't factor shrinkage in… and the piece did shrink slightly when washed and ironed. An Enchanting Surprise I woke up Christmas morning to find a RAK (random act of kindness) from the lovely Sandra Popek! She is such a generous lady and it was an awesome Christmas surprise! She sent me Josephine Wall’s Enchanted Manor. I am...

I won't write "a novel" for part 2... I'll just cut straight to the reveal and bombard you all with photos! Here she is finally framed: This one I took with the camera flash turned on: Different angle: I choose a silver coloured frame because it was much more complementary than the darker frames I was initially looking at. I felt like I wanted some metallic element in there from the start. Blacks were just too dark and wood didn’t look right. I think the lighter color really brings her out and that’s where the attention should rightly go! Frame moulding up close:   I went with the conservation clear glass (cuts out UV) to hopefully prevent any potential fading from exposure to light. Unfortunately this shot ended up a bit blurry it gives an idea of the size anyway! I am quite tall for the record!: I think it turned out well after the long process to get to this point.  Now, back to stitching my wips!

Washing Umbrella Sky: It took me about five months to get the courage to wash Umbrella Sky. Besides I wanted to enjoy looking at it for at least that long in case something went wrong (I was concerned about the reds running).  Thankfully it went well and no thread ran! She was washed in cold water with a tablespoon of Orvus Soap (also called Quilt Soap).  I washed and rinsed her twice because she was extra dirty and needed it!  After that I rolled the stitching between two towels to squeeze out the excess water. She was ironed (straight away) with a plain color tea towel over the top. Usually you iron the piece face down, but I found this was not as effective at getting wrinkles out. It worked much better ironing face up (with tea towel over top). Then she was left to dry on a flat surface. I stitched my name and years worked on into the border: Framing Dilemmas: Different framers had different ideas on the best way to frame a work like this.  This...