First Wednesday WIP for 2014

So I got off to a great start for my stitching this year.  I’ve done something every day this year which is a new record.  On New Year’s Day, I finished off an ornament which I have promised to make for a neighbor as part of a service auction.

This is Homespun Elegance’s Majestic Bird from the Just CrossStitch Christmas ornament edition.  After finishing this, I started working on probably the oldest WIP in my stash.

This was in my grandma’s sewing room when my aunt and I cleaned it out.  From the paperwork with it, the kit was first published in 1943 and from the price of $6.95 was probably purchased toward the end of the 40’s or start of the 50’s.  If she started it as soon as she bought it which was her habit, then it would mean, in all likelihood, this WIP is a good 15 years older than I am.

Now the kit should include (according to the paperwork) the brass hardware, the lining, the front, back and side petit point canvases and instructions.  I have everything but the canvas for the back.  I called Plaid which acquired Bucilla in the 1990’s and their suggestion was to buy a 14 count canvas to replace the back piece.  My husband’s suggestion was to buy a piece of black satin and use that for the back.  He’s worried that I will lose interest in it before finishing all three pieces and I can see his concern.  I’m at 6 hours of work now and starting to want it finished.

But then, this is what it looks like right now….and I really think I could finish the frontispiece in the 4 hours I have left in this rotation slot which makes it highly unlikely that I’m going to want to mark a piece of canvas and tent stitch the whole thing in black, it’s going to be boring enough doing the center band.  I own black velvet in my stash so all I would need would be some interfacing to stiffen it up so that it would work around the lining pieces.

So this is where I am right now. So just out of curiosity, if you had this piece – how would you do it?  Would you do the whole thing in needlepoint?  Would you just finish the frontispiece and do either a satin or velvet back?  if you did a different back would you do the petit point side piece or just do that in the same material as the back so as to highlight the petit point piece?   We’ll see how I feel after 4 more hours…

Posted by shondratasha on January 8, 2014

https://shondratasha.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/first-wednesday-wip-for-2014/