Another Hand Work Finish?

This little embroidery piece has been sitting around since I finished it in February of last year.

I came up with the idea to do it back in 2012 when President Obama was running for re-election.  At that time there was much talk about the historical precedence of his presidency and how he was inspired by Lincoln.  It was also interesting to reflect on the significance of his presidency in tandem with the commemorations of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War that were going on at the time.

I got Bonnie Browning's "Designs on Freedom" book when AQS was offering it as a gift with purchase.  The book has patriotic line drawings perfect for rendering in embroidery or applique.  The prior year I had downloaded a free Obama drawing they had offered that is not in the original book (and they offered it again on President's Day this year which you can get here).

I combined the Obama drawing with two others from the book:  one of Lincoln (on page 15 ) and the elements from "Give Me Liberty" (on page 25 but also available for free on the AQS website).  My plan was to add it to a quilt that I made back in 2002 called "Spontaneity" that was displayed in my downstairs bathroom which is decorated in a Red/White & Blue theme.

Testing, testing.....

 At this point, I thought two things:  wash the quilt since when it was originally made that first border was much whiter!  Second was that the embroidery needed a border -- maybe some trim?  Something that reminded me of turn of the century political banners.  I did eventually find a trim I liked:

  



I also did wash the quilt.  Yeah, about that....

 Yes, the reds ran and it didn't help that they were all next to the white border!  The little squares on this quilt were fabric swatches that I had received back when I belonged to a subscription fabric service.  I never expected to wash this wall hanging so never gave any thought to the color fastness of the swatches. Even after that, I thought I might be able to fix it by hitting those spots with a bleach pen.  So I went ahead and trimmed and turned the edges of the embroidery so I could add the trim and put it on the quilt.

Edited to Add:  Always love an opportunity to use another gadget!  I actually trimmed the edges of the embroidery with the Creative Grids Corner Cutter using the edge with the 3" radius. 

Surprisingly this is the same tool and edge I used to trim the corners of my (much larger) "Re-piecing the Past" sampler lap quilt.     

I whipstitched the trimmed out piece to the little quilt and hung it up.  I was pretty happy to finally have it done and in place. 

However, my DH was not!  While he liked the embroidery and the original little quilt he was not as jazzed about them together.  He also thought that hanging it in the same room as my "Sweet Land of Liberty" quilt took away from the larger quilt.

Sorry, hard to get a shot of both in this small room!

I do respect his opinion as he has offered good visual insight on my quilt projects before -- not to mention he has to also use this bathroom!!  So I'm probably going to take the embroidery off and try to figure out another way/place to display it.  Still counting it as a finish though!!