Finishing Day

Kelli came over one day last week and we finished a few of our cross stitch pieces.  To date, Kelli really hasn’t finished any of the things she’s stitched.  She’s stitched quite a few things tough.  Since she saw me finishing a couple things, she’s decided to jump on the bandwagon and finish a few of her things.

I wanted to finish this…It wasn’t HIGH my list as I wasn’t so excited about the colors anymore.  I picked it to finish as I’m just learning to finish and if something happened to this and I screwed up, I’d be the lease sad losing this piece.

I had this frame.  I picked it up at the thrift store for 50 cents.  I didn’t know if I liked the navy blue with the light blue on the project but someone I wanted the stitched piece to seem darker and fit in with my house a little better.

I stitched this some time ago.  It was one of the first things I stitched after I started cross stitching again.  Back then I didn’t know it was “okay” to change the colors.  I only stitched exactly what the pattern called for.  Being I’m a quilter one would think I would know that, but..I didn’t.

I ended scrapping the button off the original piece and I tried to remove the backing but it wouldn’t budge so I simply covered a piece of sticky board with the pink background fabric and stuck it into the frame.

I liked that but felt it needed something more….I felt like the stitched piece, although the colors were lighter, looked okay with the darker pink fabric and navy frame.

I ended up trying some flowers…No.

I’m not a fake flower girl….well at least not these.  I ended up doing this…

It was nothing fancy at all but I like it.   I like finishing things so they aren’t “just in a frame”…but I don’t like things too flamboyant.  This was enough for me.

This is a Lizzie Kate design called A Little Love.

I did a simple finish on another one too.  This…

The background board was a decorative piece I got at the thrift store.  There was an alphabet stenciled in the middle of the frame.  I put my stitchy piece over it.  The board already had the checkerboard stencil on it and I thought it worked with the piece.

As you can see, I put a few layers, four I think, as a padding on the stitched piece.  I like how the stitched piece is kind of raised from the board it is mounted on.

I debated and debated on whether I want to put another matted board behind the stitched piece but opted not to as I really liked the placement of the checkerboard.

This is a Lizzie Kate design For We Walk by Faith.

Now it was Kelli’s turn….She was working with this little piece.  Being it was the first piece she was finishing she picked this because it was small.

I had the little shelf with drawers thing.  I had picked it up at the thrift store for $2 thinking someday, I might find a small cross stitch piece that would fit in the center.

I offered to Kelli and she protested.  She didn’t think she should take it as it was mine.  I didn’t care.  I really didn’t at all.  I had it for a year and didn’t use it.  The time had come to use it.

Kelli auditioned fabrics to mount behind the stitched piece but didn’t like anything until I was packing up the pink I had used and she said, “Hey, I want what you had.”

From there Kelli went into panic mode.  I made a bow but she wanted a covered button in the center of the bow.  I handed her the packet to make covered buttons and she squealed, “I don’t know how to make them”.  I told I had either so she could read the directions and learn.  Here she is with her covered button.

This is how her piece turned out….we both really like it.  The stitched piece fits in there perfectly.

We even stopped to take a picture with Georgie too.
Kelli’s piece was also a Lizzie Kate design…It’s the small companion piece to this.

I plan to stitch is this as well.

Kelli and I had a really fun afternoon, hanging out and putzing.  We both have several more pieces to do.  Honestly, I think I have close to 20 pieces to finish.  Little by little I’m tackling them.  I do have a bit of a better system for doing it now with the totes in the garage.  The garage is MUCH closer than the sewing room to the kitchen and the kitchen is where we work on finishing.  There is more room there.  Running up and down the steps to get the supplies we needed in the sewing room was a PAIN.

Kelli started on another one piece to finish but needed to paint the board first so that is dried now and the next time she comes, she can finish it.

Hopefully we’ll get another day to work on finishing.  It was really fun.

A big shout out to Priscilla.  We would have never thought to finish pieces so creatively without your influence.