Smalls SAL - February

Hi everyone,

Another day to link to Mary of Mary´s Threads for the February´s Smalls SAL.  If you would like to join this group or find out more about it, just click on my sidebar button.

I saw this pincushion design by Anna of Allysic years ago and knew that I would have to stitch it one day.  I´m always interested in embroidery patterns with speciality stitches.

So I had a go at embroidering lots of woven wheel stitch roses, long arm cross stitch rows and French knot buds.

Although I have been trying to keep away from my favourite pinks and greens, I couldn´t resist with this pattern and used DMC 936 and 3364 for the green parts and a mysterious variegated pink which long ago lost its number.

It only needed a small piece of backing fabric, that perfect piece which of course I couldn´t find in my stash and so I´m not very pleased with the chosen pink but do stubbornly refuse to buy more fabric until my stash is reduced.

I made some cording with the green floss and added a snap fastener and a couple of beads to decorate.

Each side was lightly stuffed leaving a space in the middle as that is where the little bag would stand and in that small space I placed a piece of cardboard.

I think I will keep this pincushion for myself.

Now a good idea to visit Mary and see what others have stitched this month.

Thank you for looking.

                                       Sheryl

Fully Finished Gallery SAL

Today I am joining Rachel for the Fully Finished Gallery SAL with a completed item from my Dreaded Drawer.

 I don´t really have very many unfinished embroideries as I don´t start stitching anything unless I know what I am going to make but then there are those adulterated patterns that don´t turn out as hoped because yours faithfully started chopping and changing thread colours and therefore the unsatisfied result gets put to rest in the aforesaid drawer.

The below embroidery was done a couple of years ago and now I don´t know where I found the pattern. I ordered blue fabric from the internet to which I took an instant dislike due to its stiff scratchy feeling and the colour next to a pretty blue looked almost grey.

I stitched the tiny heart (between the two birds) with silver thread which when completed didn´t convince me and the birds didn´t have eyes for some reason, so everything got scrapped.

With the Fully Finished SAL in mind, I rescued the embroidery and while still dithering about the colour of the little heart, started backing the piece and adding a blanket stitch surround done with white perlé Nº 8.

I found a suitable edging although it had to be made separately and added afterwards to the blanket stitch. For this crochet, I used a finer thread - perlé Nº 12, my favourite.

The silver heart was changed to a red one and although I tried seed beads for the birds´ eyes, they looked too big, so the poor things still can´t see very well.

Well, at least this embroidery has been completely finished thanks to this new SAL, so I do encourage everyone who has uncompleted stitching to join Rachel at Ten Hour Stitcher, 

 Until next week     

Sheryl