Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Minor Happy Dance

I finished all the stitching for Judy O'Dell's My Treasures Workstation, though not quite in time to really work along with the other stitchers who were finishing their Workstations over this past weekend. Instead, I was lucky enough to be about two days behind them, which meant I got extra clues on what to do and how to do it from them. Thanks to following in their expert footsteps and Judy's wonderful instructions and encouragement, I managed to do all of my finishing (except the pin cushion, which I did the night before to practice the joining stitch Judy used in this project) on Monday. But more on that later.

The hinge was the quickest part of this project for me to stitch, partly because I made no changes to the charted hinge.


I'm feeling a bit conflicted about my needle pages. During the finishing, I put the smaller (top) one on my Workstation upside down from how the instructions called for it to be (I hadn't realized until my needle pages were already attached that the top one was supposed to go on a different way ... which would have created the image of a square with the top half of the square on the top needle page and the bottom part of the square on the bottom needlepage). Once I figured out my mistake, I wished I had put a row of rhodes butterflies across the top of the smaller needle page to make it look like I did it "wrong" on purpose. In fact, I did consider adding butterflies to the needle pages but figured it would be too heavy of a stitch on my somewhat flimsy fabric, especially for pieces that were going to be loose on three sides. Had I stitched the butterflies across what is my top of the smaller needle page (both needle pages are pictured here upside down from how I put them onto my workstation, so imagine butterflies straight across from the flowers in the blank area, and you'll know where I now wish I had put butterflies), they would have been close enough to where the needle pages attach to the Workstation that they wouldn't have been too heavy ... oh well, I'm certainly not taking it apart now! Actually, I am quite happy with having done it differently than the instructions called for, just because that is another part that makes it uniquely mine ... but I still feel conflicted because I could have made it even more mine. ;>) So, my needle pages are stitched almost as charted (I reduced the size of the four sided stitches around the border to make the finished needle pages look daintier), but the smaller one is installed "wrong." LOL.



And here are the top and bottom of the pin cushion, which would be identical were it not for the variegated thread. I replaced cross stitches with the closed herringbone and rhodes butterflies on these.



The base was the hardest part for me because it involved centering lettering, which, as I mentioned previously, is not one of my strong suits. I did the math, but incorrectly, as I originally intended to include my middle initial until I found while stitching that it wouldn't fit. Then I still had to edit the last letter from the way it was charted; otherwise, I would have had to rip out my last name. (How fortunate I am that my last name is only three letters long! Otherwise, I would have had to center lettering on two different lines, LOL.) However, I am happy with the result, and also happy I was able to center lettering without having to rip it out more than once (I didn't determine that the middle initial was too much until after I had already stitched it) -- I think that is a first for me. The lone rhodes butterfly is my addition to this chart; I thought about doing a few more, but this was the last piece I stitched and I was eager to start the finishing process. (I managed to get the butterfly centered on the first try again. One thing I love about stitching is that I constantly amaze myself, LOL. Woohoo ... I can count! Sometimes, anyway ... )

I'll show you my finished Workstation in my next post. I do have pictures of it already, but am hoping for a less dreary day to try taking better ones. ;>)

1 comment:

Myrna said...

Your stitching looks lovely!